How does fascism happen?

When you look back at fascists, you see patterns of behavior that, while they are happening, don’t seem so nefarious individually. But when you add them up, a different story appears. For example:

Neutering the parliament/Congress
Emasculating the courts
Limiting press freedom slowly
Raiding journalists’ homes
Appointing only true loyalists
Banishing from their government anyone who doesn’t toe the line
Employing spokesmen who ignore questions and attack the questioner for a lack of patriotism
Employing spokesman who tell the public that it didn’t see what it saw
Investigating and charging perceived political enemies
Pardoning people convicted and/or confessing to crimes for no seeming reason
Threatening to cancel elections
Claiming a lost election is a rigged election
Redrawing political maps out to maintain control
Manipulating information to match their version of the truth
Lying
Bullying
Intimidating
Going around traditional institutions and creating their own
Unilaterally defunding programs they don’t agree with
Unilaterally changing laws without going through the traditional process
Taking down monuments of those they don’t agree with
Building monuments to yourself
Employing a masked police force

The list, unfortunately, goes on until someone stops it.