I totally get how people can support these leaders, and how they can look good from the inside. What I don’t get is taking a really bad one and, long after it became obvious he was horrible in every way, saying that he was good until he went crazy. (Edit: more accurately, I understand how a person can do that, but not without being a sympathizer or at the very least an apologist.) What I really don’t get is taking that and saying that the notion that he and his party were pure evil from the start was a retcon by the victors.