Interesting to note is that a great many 18th century European countries were relatively free despite being absolute monarchies. Sweden for example.
Basically, semantic bull. Fascism focuses on the greatness of the nation, period.
For like half a century, the Japanese liberal party held a majority of seats in the Imperial Diet, until recently that is. They met practically no resistance and were almost unchallenged, which made Japan practically a one-party state. A liberal democratic one-party state at that.