The nazis have been reduced to an abstract symbol of evil. The ways that they co-opted liberal institutions to seize power is ignored. They happened in real life. They used the same levers of power everyone else agrees are legitimate. They weren't a dark cloud of evil sweeping through Germany, they were human beings acting with purpose and intent. Their means can be analyzed. The fascists today work the same way as the fascists of yesterday.

There's that apocryphal statement "fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag". Maybe, maybe not. But I know that if fascism manages to seize absolute power again, and it is getting perilously close with all these far-right governments getting elected all over the place and the ever increasing audacity with which liberal governments bring their weapons down on the human beings that stand in their way, it will do so while shrieking "free speech" all the way. Free speech is such a, such a sacred institution, and it's supposed to keep us safe from tyranny. Just like democratic elections, right?

And everyone will act surprised how suddenly it seems we are in their grips.

Sticking to ideals and trying to have an ideology of "freedom" doesn't stop nazis. Fascists of all stripes need to be treated as engaged in concrete power struggle, not abstract ideological debate.