I guess I don’t understand what you think I’m missing. I think the rise of an explicitly fascist party and the propaganda arm to support it is pretty dire.

And historically, the right has been at the forefront of new media. Talk radio has been almost exclusively reactionary since its inception, and that provided a model for new media as well. We’ve had nearly a century of radical right-wing radio content to hone the message and tactics. Father Caughlin was doing his radio show in 1933, wherein he took his “America First” message to the nation.

There have been more leftist new-media shows than previously, but they are still playing catch-up with the well-funded reactionaries.

The right-wing rage machine has recently been fueled by a number of things, but mainly loss in prestige due to acceptance of LGBTQ+ people & the US hiring a black president. They got a candidate in Donald Trump who swore to be their retribution, and they rallied around him because he hates all the same people, but (perhaps most importantly) also spoke to their loss in a way that other Republicans and Democrats would not.