These people have been sold a line for generations, and now they are starting to see it all unravel. They were told that if they worked hard, followed the rules, and kept their nose clean they would become just like their boss one day.
So they bought into the program big time, hoping one day they (or at least their kids) would get to be rich, and have people working for THEM. Or at least, get a desk job in the office.

But it didn't work out that way. They are sliding back into poverty, their kids will never do as well as they did, and their bosses are laughing all the way to the bank. College has become too expensive to get their kids that office job, and even if they do get it, it has no benefits or pension or security, and the working conditions are rapidly devolving to Gilded Age Robber Baron Capitalism..

So they're pissed, and they're looking for someone to blame their bad luck on. They can't pick the bosses or the rich, because that's the people they want to become, so they pick on the poor, the blacks, the Mexicans, the Muslims, and all those smarty-pants Liberals and intellectuals who tried to tell them for years they were being conned and that their luck was running out.

These are the people who can be talked into fascism, its the same people that brought fascism to Italy, Germany, Spain and half of South America. Fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class, or at least, those people in the middle class who suddenly realize that a time of prosperity which benefited them enormously is now coming to an end. They are looking for scapegoats, and there is always someone around who is willing to provide them. Its not about masks and social distancing, its just that the cult they belong to told them the virus was a left wing hoax, and they can't afford not to believe that. If the Fuhrer is wrong about the Jews masks, he just might be wrong about other things too.

America, indeed, the Free World, since the end of WWII has been on a rising spiral of prosperity. That arc peaked around 1980, and now its on the way down. And consumer, corporate and government debt can no longer postpone the coming crash. That's why it isn't just happening here, its happening all over the planet, all over the Western Democracies.

Defeating Trump was a small victory. Our civilization is running on battery power.