Fascism as an ideology had an outsized impact on the European political discourse. Partly because many democracies on the continent were young and fragile, partly because radio and cinema had started to spread the news faster than ever, partly because mass-education started at the end of the previous century had resulted in more and more people reading newspapers, partly because it was a reaction other continent-wide movements (socialism and communism) - fascism was observed/fought/supported very keenly across most of Europe since 1920. It generated very strong opinions, as you might imagine, in a context where the role of violence in political life was already hotly debated “on the other side” (leftists had been violently repressed for decades already, so there were demands to respond in kind with terrorist actions and so on - and of course the USSR had taken that to the next level). And it was effectively a negation of representative democracy systems, which were often seen as ineffective in times of deep crisis.

Fascism was heralded by some as “the next step” in political evolution, which rightly horrified a significant number of people who could see the inevitable results. It was not judged by the same parameters of an expansionist foreign power, but by the potential for “evil” in one’s own country.