There's some interesting essays in here but a great many of them are very stupid. The Samantha Power and Jack Goldsmith essays are interesting for their author's perspectives as former government officials. Powers's perspective on foreign disinformation and hacking's impact on the election was interesting because of her former role as a high level diplomat. The Jack Goldsmith essay was a history of domestic intelligence gathering (and dirty tricks) from the perspective of an intelligence community insider. I disagree with Powers and Goldsmith on certain key points, but their perspective as experts made for good essays.
Watt's critique of Common Sense is another outstanding essay, breaking down how "common sense" in political discourse is a code word to differentiate an in-group from "others".
I also enjoyed Elster's essay on Napoleon III's rise to power, even if (by his own admission) the story is of limited relevance to the situation we find ourselves in today.
Other honorable mentions are the essays by Minnow, Strauss, Holmes, & Stone.
The rest of the essays were kinda stupid.
Some of the more optimistic essays (such as Sunstein's & Stenner's/Haidt's) seemed to be backed up mostly by selective memory and wishful thinking.
Cowen's essay suggests that the US government is too large and decentralized for fascists to take over, while ignoring other factors, such as the militarization of police throughout the country.
Feldman's essay tried to answer the title question through pedantry. Actually, many of the essays got hung up on inconsequential differences between 1930s-style fascism and the kinds of authoritarianism we are seeing develop throughout the world today.
Kuran's idea that students and activists working to shut down fascists are the real authoritarians is idiotic.
Overall, this book was a little disappointing.