[sterlind]

right. politicians love to sow hatred. it's easier to promise to make the constituents' enemies suffer than to promise to make their consituents' lives better. plus the polarization leads to safer votes ("I don't agree with everything Mr. X is doing, but damned if I'll let Mr. Y win")

Hitler famously stoked hatred for Jews to increase his popularity. I know that Germany was already fairly antisemitic prior to Hitler's rise to power, but I wonder how many "moderates" felt Schadenfreude towards the Jews by Kristalnacht. how fast did the propaganda take effect?

[ndiddy]

If I'm remembering correctly, the reaction to Kristalnacht was largely negative. The Germans were largely fine with being antisemetic in general, and with the abstract concept of displacing and killing the Jews, but when they had to directly observe innocent people getting brutalized and murdered they didn't support it. I think this is why the Holocaust was run the way it was, with the forced labor and killing happening outside the view of the general public. They all knew it was happening, but they didn't have to watch anyone getting forced into the gas chambers. A less extreme example of this is how Trump ran on the idea of conducting mass deportations of illegal immigrants, but when the general public saw ICE actually carrying out the mass deportations, public opinion turned against them.