Newsflash: Americans not really understanding what fascism is, IS part of why Americans have spent the past 70+ years increasingly embracing fascism. The vast majority of people in this society think "fascism is when funny little moustache, Hugo Boss uniforms, and The Holocaust."
And that idea has PURPOSELY been cultivated in them by a hyper-reactionary ruling class order that ABSORBED fascism after WWII to fight the Cold War and installed fascism in puppet states to maintain global power.