We weren't a fascist state at that point, but we sure have been laying the groundwork since then.

Oh really? Just ask any Black person.

Did we have the segregation well into the 50's? Did we bomb entire city blocks? Do we regularly have police swarm, main, and kill protesters?

Marcuse wrote in the 1960s that the only way to prevent another Hitler from rising is to give the left free rein and cage and muzzle the right. So by extension, anyone who supports rightists being able to spread their ideas freely, let alone implement them with real political power, is a fascist in effect even if they disclaim identification with Hitler's or Mussolini's political philosophy.

Fascism is absolutely here today, there's no question about that.

There's also a direct line to the fascism we see today emanating from proto-fascist project the GOP was engaged in standing up during the early 2000s.

That GW was not the fascist leader everyone wanted him to be doesn't really push back against the idea that this group of people has largely fascist leanings. Trump gave them the final missing ingredient which was the cult leader. But every other feature you listed as missing I find were actually present, and we can debate that if you want.

But we can see how the Bush admin and voters are reacting to abject fascism. They applaud it, support it, amplify it, excuse it, or they stay silent and never push back (like Bush himself). A lot of them are the same people from back then. So really, to me the absurd proposition here is that the people who stood up the CIA torture black sites, warrantless wiretaps, homeland security, ICE, etc. who are now turning these things against all Americans, weren't at least latent fascists or fascist-leaning in their ideology.