How worried are you about the rise of fascism?

My great grandpa (maternal side) is Czech and he once told us of how during the rise of the Nazi Party in neighboring Germany, but there were many in Czechoslovakia as well who were sympathetic to the Nazis, Hitler and their ideals, as truth be told, many Czechs saw the Germans as "equals", thought that the Nazis hatred of Jews, Roma people or Slavic people somehow didn't apply to them (Czechs who saw themselves as "Germanic" and/or sympathized with the Nazis).

Meanwhile many of those who opposed and/or did not sympathize with the Nazis also downplayed the threat the Nazis posed by saying things like "Oh, what's happening in Germany won't happen here", or "Hitler won't make good on his crazy threat to invade us", "Oh, it probably won't get that bad" or some other way of saying that we (those who are raising alarms over the danger Hitler actually posed) are overeacting.

When Hitler's forces invaded, a number of Czech people actually welcomed them giving Nazi salutes to the columns of invading Nazi troops or tearing down the Czech flag from buildings themselves to replace it with Nazi flags.

However, my great grandpa saw the danger the Nazis posed, the repression, violence and death they'd bring and lo and behold, when the Nazis did actually occupy Czechoslovakia, turns out the Nazis weren't just oppressing the Jews, gay people, communists, liberals, Czech nationalists and academics, but also extended their oppression of ordinary Czech people, including those of Germanic ancestry. Turns out, the Nazis didn't see us as equals after all and many of those Czechs who welcomed the Nazis had a "why are the leopards eating my face, I supported them?" mentality when the Gestapo came after them as well.

This is basically an oversimplification of why my great grandpa told me but yeah, the reason the Nazis (and fascism in general) was able to rise the way it does was because people either underestimated its danger or downplayed it for years, treating them like a joke until that joke wasn't funny anymore.

10k up votes we're going to hear about drumph until the universe ends huh