> that only happens after tens of millions have died and entire countries are leveled

That levelling, darkly, does solve the problem. Nazism ultimately turned Western Europe into an American protectorate. And under Pax Americana, it thrived. One can similarly point to Imperial Japan having laid the groundwork for the Asian miracle, at the cost of millions of lives.

Maybe fascism has a purpose: it lumps together a generation’s horrific and emotionally stunted and combusts them against an innocent population. That’s horrible. But it leaves better cinders than it came to.

(For the avoidance of doubt, I neither think fascism is good nor inevitable.)