He wasn’t. He just had a brilliant PR team and the media behind him.
And once he had power, he scared everyone into following his rule because they became aware of the consequences of not doing so.
Basically the Tories over the past 8 years, just without the genocide.
I think of that as a coup by the back door. Somehow, almost overnight, the likes of Rudd and Remain Tory MP's / old fashioned Tories were booted out or shunted to one side.
I don't get as emotive about it as your analogy to Hitler, for many reasons. We live in a democracy, in July 2024 they were annihilated at the ballot box. No one was murdered or forced to flee murder, far from it, our population continued to grow hugely each year from inwards migration (no one disputes the stats).
I'm more concerned in the here and now. With the sizeable proportion of Brits 'educated' on social media who like Farage, Putin et al. In any other era these stirrers would be fifth columnists.