"the answer: meaningful reform of democratic institutions, etc"
I agree, but just who is going to do that? None of the traditional parties , nor the MSM, have been paying attention to what has been brewing over the last decade. Their answer to all this is more lecturing, and more articles telling everyone how they should think. The answer to populism is to be aware of the discontent and develop policies to answer it. And neither the mainstream parties nor the mainstream media are willing to do what is, after all, their job.
Trump is awful. He may well be fascist.  But history is not repeating itself because  the people are stupid, or xenophobic, or uneducated, or male, or white. It is repeating itself because the politicians and the media are not responding to the needs and concerns of the people.