This is also why it is so weird and unnecessary to me when people just say that liberal democracy is the same thing as fascism. The fact that two things are linked or that one has tendencies that lead it to transform into, produce, be replaced by the other does not mean that they’re the same. Actually it implies the opposite, otherwise there would be no transformation to begin with.

Would you prefer “liberal democracy nearly inevitably leads to fascism”? Stage 1 cancer and stage 4 cancer are both cancer.