[atoav]

Godwins law does not apply when the people you're talking about are literal Nazis. I count people into that who say they adore Hitler and do Nazi salutes on stages.

Maybe not enough people have made the experience that (A) people following a genoicidal ideology still exist and (B) they try their best to wear the sheeps fur of populism while they try to get into power.

I grew up in an Austrian province with one of my grandfathers in the Wehrmacht, Nazis are weak idiots that always look elsewhere when there is a problem instead of fixing it at home. With 14 I met my first neo-nazis that were admiring their Nazi-grandfathers. All incredibly insecure people, who thought a violent ideology was the only way how they could make their environment perceive them as powerful and manly.

I said in the beginning of Trumps first presidential campaign that the guy is a fascist and got swamped with criticism, of how I could know that. I know that, because I grew up with the type that would love him and under the devastating governance of one Jörg Haider, one of the first "Neue Rechte" poltical heads in Europe. He famously had ties to the likes of Gaddafi before be died in self-inflicted car accident with two bottles of vodka in him.

Trump is still a fascist only this time he is also surrounded by fascists. Needless to say, historically that form of despotic governance didn't really last and lead to the worst atrocities in human history.

[_cenw]

We're finally getting an answer to "how could such a thing happen". The answer is pretty simple: We think of history distinctly different than current events, ourselves as more enlightened and of our peers as more capable of calling it. And besides, it'd be really inconvenient if we actually had fascism, so why not ignore it until it's on the news or something.

[Anthony-G]

In the 1930s, Germans (and their European neighbours) considered themselves to be more enlightened and culturally sophisticated – despite the political instability and economic turmoil that plagued the Weimar republic (war reparation debt, hyper-inflation, Great Depression).

[atoav]

There are contemporary people who said the country in most danger of falling for communism is Germany, while Russia was seen to be in danger of turning fascist.

History has this weird thing of becoming invisible to many of the actors within it. I guess it takes a certain kind of mind (or is it just education?) to be the lobster that noticing the water becoming warmer. Without any frame of reference it could be train moving, or the landscape — those with some degree of historic education have some absolute frame of reference at least.