I cringe to declare that I think you are more right than wrong.
Intimidation will be the means, economic and legal intimidation of one person at a time. He can’t deal with masses I don’t think because there are not enough enforcers, maybe?
He’ll use the old Nazi program: single out one group at a time and steal their possessions, restrict their freedom, isolate them (probably not physically isolate them as the German nazis did, but more likely socially isolate them). When one group is done, declare another group to to be “politically unreliable”, “counter-revolutionary”, or some new term that means “disagrees with the Party”.
Everyone will cheer as he atttacks the “Others”, and then wonder why one is coming to their assistance and they become the “Others” and the persecution suddenly becomes “unfair”.
This is why the left has gone to so much trouble to portray everything as Nazi or “Just like Hitler” for the past few years. It has immunized everyone to recongnizing any connection with the practices of the German Nazis so that American Fascism can thrive without anyone noticing. After all, the left can’t be fascist because they’re the ones that call everyone else a nazi, right?