No but that's my point, the nazis had to march entire classes of people to death camps at gun point to be considered "normative," and even then there was a resistance movement not only in every occupied country but also Germany itself. The reality is a minority of people were willing to use extraordinary violence and propaganda to present their viewpoint as "normal," but I don't agree that that made it "normal" even for the times.
And even now we see that the normalization of naziism is apparently impossible - I was incredibly cynical about the American right wing happily embracing naziism, but I guess I was partially wrong: there's a schism this week over popular American right wing media figures platforming the nazi Nick Fuentes.
> The reality is a minority of people were willing to use extraordinary violence and propaganda to present their viewpoint as "normal," but I don't agree that that made it "normal" even for the times.
Before modernity, extraordinary violence and propaganda were, well, ordinary. Hitler just made that work on industrial scale, but the underlying moral ideas weren't anything new. During antiquity, people didn't mind slaughtering entire cities. Even more modern history is full shit like that, look up Mongol invasions.
BTW don't you think that it's a little awkward that in modern times "pirates", which were people that'd literally kill seamen for profit, are considered a fun Halloween theme for children? I can imagine that in 500 years Nazi costumes will be similarly normalized.
By the time the "death camps" started, Nazism’s takeover of Germany’s society was complete; peer pressure was now doing the work that initially thugs had to do. Yes, there was a resistance because there will always be people who disagree with whomever is in power, but those people where acting against the norm. Only with Germany losing the war were they rehabilitated in the eyes of Germany society at large, and initially with some grudging resistance here and there.
This is why posting about how “Nazism is objectively immoral, m’kay?" misses the point and can be counterproductive. The whole reason that fascism is a continual spectre is that, it turns out, by appealing to people’s base instincts and cracking heads, a malevolent political form can completely sidestep morality and institute the society it wants to see.
And even now we see that the normalization of naziism is apparently impossible - I was incredibly cynical about the American right wing happily embracing naziism, but I guess I was partially wrong: there's a schism this week over popular American right wing media figures platforming the nazi Nick Fuentes.