It's not really because it's their last chance, but because it is their best chance in the foreseeable future. One of their key allies, Russia, is close to falling under the weight of the economic consequences of its war, they are about to get complete reigns again in the US, in no small part to voter manipulation, and all they need is to stuff government a bit more to make it as much of a "democracy" as Russia's.

Not that I'm arguing against it being "their last chance", a lot of democracies are slowly wising up in their slow bureaucratic timescale about what's actually happening, how social networks are getting exploited, how just having one case against Cambridge Analytica did not so much stop the problem as acted as international advertising for its services, and how any advantages they thought they were getting are being undermined by those same networks propping up fascist on a global scale locally.

The US turning fascist is basically a whole globalist oligarchy turning on itself, and they know that they can no longer follow status quo or they will be toppled from down under by the those on top. The new populist fascist drive powered by the ultrarich wants to make the world eat itself before it eats them as we get closer to the consequences of global warming, resource scarcity, and population growth reaching its limits, not directly as a conspiracy but as a consequence of that's how they have always acted but now on a macro-scale.