An entire set of countries actually - no division between intelligence. It was a global cultural phenomenon.

to be fair, there was lots of resistance within those countries, but not enough to overcome the Guys With Guns(tm).

The point is it has nothing to do with being smart or dumb. if you can’t explain why smart people in good faith participated, you just don’t understand it,

And the leadership was supposedly smart too.

Intelligence and morality don't necessarily go together.

The amount of Argumentum ad Nazium / Reductio ad Hitlerum going around at the moment is getting really tiresome.

Can we stick to the actual issues instead of invoking Nazis? It’s not helping the discussion.

The Trump regime is the modern equivalent to the Nazi regime. Just because we don't get to see through the perspective of history doesn't mean it doesn't share all the same characteristics. The only difference with Nazi Germany is that the current democratic institutions in the United States are somewhat stronger than the ones in Germany in the 1930s, which prevent the Trump regime to gain full power. But they have been systematically eroded in the last few years (and especially in the last 6 months), and eventually they will fail too.