This supercut should illustrate the way neo-nazis such as the proud boys [1]
are normalized and swept under the rug. Some 30% of the US voters will enthusiastically support such groups, and another ~20% happily look the other way.
Fascism is like a weed that must be continually demonstrated against. Else you end up with police departments executing their own countrymen in the street, pregnant and naked, gun to the back of the head; convinced that if they don't they "betray their brothers in arms". [2]
It is an insidious ideology brought about by increasingly desperate conditions of the proletariat and stoked by "might makes right" worship of the "glorious leader".
[1] https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/civil-war-brewing-inside-pr...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Police
Learn from history, because it's already repeating itself.
I tend to reserve the label for those that follow the philosophy's that inspired the Nazis such as the white supremacists Houston Stewart Chamberlain. I'd expect them to hold to racial purity beliefs.
I guess language changes but it does seem imprecise.
I'd say one of the dangers history teaches is the mistake of painting the other tribe as a monster. When you no longer see them as human you become a monster yourself and can justify ugly behavior.
The other is a fellow human capable of change, of redemption.
Stumbling upon that particular panel in the permanent exhibit at the Dokumentationszentrum at the former Reichsparteitagsgelände (“Nazi Rally Grounds”) in Nuremberg was an eye-opener - I have a sharp memory of seeing it the first time. The Nazis borrowed heavily from the Jim Crow laws that were still in force in the US South.
Note: the Dokumentationszentrum is a completely different, though complementary museum to the Nürnberger Prozess Memorium (“Nuremberg Trials museum”). Though far less well-known, I think it’s the more important of the two (the other is worthwhile, don’t get me wrong!)
How does a “normal,” “cultured” Western country go from being a fragile democracy to Hell on Earth for many of its erstwhile citizens and neighbors? Relatively little space there is spent on post-1939; at that point, individual resistance was futile, and there are many other sites that cover the greater horrors of the second half of the Nazi regime, but focuses on 1931-1939, when it might have been possible to stop.
The display text is mostly in German, but the English language audio guide is good. If any of you ever visit Nuremberg, I will walk you through it.
This something that deserves more thought in the modern day. Not only did it happen in Germany, hell on earth broke out in the Soviet union and North Korea.
We really need to avoid repeating those mistakes.