I doubt the “not knowing” thing was even actually common back then. It feels more like a bullshit narrative that got invented by nationalists that got accepted by liberals too to avoid personal negative consequences.

Italy for example had people going “Mussolini was good actually” people from the start and they were never punished - though those wanting fascist rule were unpopular, since most simply supported the Christian democrats. After all, they fulfilled what they wanted anyway - have a stable and well-run capitalist state that repressed anticapitalist dissent and protected their class interest through means like class collaborationism.

“Why don’t they fight back if they hate it so much? Cowards can fuck off and die for all I care” - libs about Russians or Syrians.

Accepting your death by adventurism is not exactly common - just as fragging your superior officer in Vietnam wasn’t - even if Revolution to overthrow the government for socialism and ending the war is the only solution that doesn’t keep humanity in a dead end.

I’m not excusing them in any way. I’m condemning the democratic nationalists too - in General. When the war drums beat, both the thugs with swastikas and the libs with broccoli haircuts are eager to jump in and kill for the country.

I hate the state and the army.

The clean Wehrmacht stuff was created to justify why militarism was supposedly necessary in 50s West Germany and a “We’re good actually.” moralistic cope. The same way random Nazi collaborators from WW2 (or even fucking Genghis Khan in Mongolia) are praised in former Soviet states.

Reprehensible, and its goal is even worse. Plus, it has the “neat” side effect of being very helpful of making people who like, or at least not hate, the state rabidly anticommunist.

Soldiers are almost certain to be fanatically nationalistic, so I’m not trusting any of them to not be that anytime soon. I still feel regret those people have been led to being what they became.

Unfortunately wars tend to draw people in that don’t want to do anything with it.

Like 90% of the population is probably nationalistic (in every bourgeois country!), and it doesn’t matter at all if it’s fascist, flag-saluting kind or your average democratic patriot (which is just a more acceptable way of saying nationalist).

It’s hilariously isolating to become aware of that fact.

Biden narrowly wins the US election, but dies on election day. The news is kept secret for a few days afterwards, until somebody leaks it.

The Tories lose every seat in the UK Election and drop to single digits (actually fairly likely to happen lol)

I can’t think of much else. The rest of the world is too depressing for anything funny to happen.

Obama above Copmala lol

It was not voluntary.

The Liberal Party of the UK went from 43,2% in 1910 (272 seats) to 13,0% in the next election of 1918 (36 seats).

The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Socdems) in Greece had almost the same fall - 43,9% in 2009 to 13,8% in 2012. So much that the decline of socdem parties became known as PASOKification.

The Polish Democratic Left Alliance, the successor of the PZPR, got into power with 41,0% of the vote (compared to the second placed PO with 12,7%) in 2001, but a mixture of neoliberal reforms and scandals made them fall to 11,31% in 2005, which also led to the rise of the far-right.

At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, McAdoo received the support of the Ku Klux Klan. He refused to answer questions on if he was a member of the KKK and he did not repudiate the KKK causing the Catholic vote to turn against him. McAdoo defeated Oscar Underwood, who was an opponent of the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, in the Georgia primary and split the Alabama delegation.