I agree with you that there is a big difference between "cottagecore" the online movement - which I believe is full of cryptofascist poison - and ordinary people who live similar lifestyles within their own communities and have nothing to do with fascism.

I both agree and disagree that there's not a seamless slide from cottagecore aesthetic to racism. I agree, because there's not necessarily a direct link between storing beans in mason jars and living in a militia camp in Montana preparing for the racial holy war. I disagree, because online cottagecore influencers are deliberately using those beans in mason jars in order to recruit new racists.

Cryptofascist cottagecore influencers start with unobjectionable good like "limit screentime" and "let kids play outside" and "consume less, reuse more". Then they incorporate more of their "traditionalist" moral and social values into their work. Then they follow/share/point their viewers at other influencers and sources, who are a bit more traditionalist, a bit more religious, a bit more aggressively opposed to modern society, a bit more mask off. And those influencers point their viewers at even more aggressively conservative sources. And so on and so forth. And ultimately you're watching videos about tradwives churning their own butter and talking about how liberals want to ban raw milk and how lactose tolerance helped white Europeans conquer the world.

That's why cottagecore is cryptofascist instead of mask off fascism. Because a lot of cottagecore content is positive and unobjectionable but it's being used to build an audience of people who dislike modern society and technology in order to indoctrinate that audience into fascism.

See also Jordan Peterson, who starts with "clean your room and make a schedule" and ends up with "men sexually assault women because of feminism".

So you say raising kids off screens and so on is good. And of course it is. Because if there weren't good and appealing aspects to the cottagecore subculture, crypto-fascists would be recruiting in different subcultures and we wouldn't be having this conversation 😆

(And in passing, everything I just ranted about applies to the actual fascists in the online community. The fact that cottagecore presents an idealized version of 19th century American settler colonialism, so is, let's say, problematic from the start, is not necessarily related to fascism but is still a concern that the movement mostly ignores. But then, homesteading and back to the land movements in the United States mostly have the same problems.)