this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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It doesn't matter.
Europeans know the history of fascism much, much better than Americans do and they're electing right-wing leaders too.
There's "knowing" on a theoretical level, and knowing having experienced it. As the generational knowledge of people that have experienced fascism dies off the younger generations have to learn the hard way. Seems to happen every 100 or so years.
The idea of "European exceptionalism" is no different than the idea of "American exceptionalism". People are fundamentally the same regardless of where they live -- we all have the same base instincts, the same hard-coded tribalistic tendencies, and the same fears. Every population on the planet is susceptible to fascism because it preys on the aforementioned.
I'm European and I subscribe more to American exceptionalism than European exceptionalism.
I mean the US has exceptionally awesome landscapes and national parks, exceptionally friendly and polite people and uh... Yeah, exceptionally nasty politics, that's the one. That's the one I hate.
It's a country with so much potential, and most of it is spent bickering instead of building a better future for everyone. Which they damn well could afford with their GDP per capita.
i'd argue that there's knowing how things were and there's an undertanding of it. i went through the higher tier of the segregating west german school system under the supervision of very humanist engaged teachers. and yet that system was far from being able to deliver the second.
Afd had a huge young voter base in the recent german elections.