@ChrisMayLA6 @BashStKid

I read an interesting research finding yesterday (which unfortunately I can't find now) that not only does most hate speech on social media come from a tiny number of people (3%), but most others have the impression that it comes from far more people than this.

We have a similar misunderstanding of history. We think fascism in 1930s Europe had widespread support, but in fact the path to political power wasn't through majority support - certainly in Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, etc - the pattern was limited electoral successes on the far right in the context of broader left progress, BUT precisely in reaction to the prospect of the left curtailing existing wealth and privilege, conservative establishments, represented by senior army, legal or royal/aristocratic figures, looking for a 'strong man' to reassert the old power relations.

So we have, I think, a very general misapprehension that there are lots of horrible fascists about, wheres in fact there are few, and this disguises what is really happening: in general, left/green progress, in the face of which desperate establishments, trying to preserve existing wealth and privilege, turn ever more desperately to the 'strong man' solution, ignorant of the lesson of 1930s Europe that this cure is far worse than what they see as the disease of social and environmental progress.