Are we going to change that by telling them to stop being apathetic/ignorant and that fascism is bad? Because that seems to have been the primary strategy the Dems have run over the last decade and the only time it’s worked for them was when the effects of Trump’s incompetence was unavoidably present in the minds of Americans. I’d rather we not depend on another catastrophe to win the next election, assuming we will have one.

No, the solution is much deeper and more multifaceted. The Dems have the approximate strategic competence of a walnut.

At the same time, the toxic positivity of ‘agree to disagree’ that has become increasingly present even through the radicalization of the right since the 1990s has allowed many people to entirely detach their increasingly fascist political choices from their social lives, and this must be reversed. The fact that many here on Lemmy seem hell-bent on playing apologist for allowing fascism makes the message particularly important to be said here - we are all responsible for our choices, our choices have moral implications, and we live with those choices forever. There is no washing your hands of your deeds, there is no sitting out and playing innocent. This is not (yet) a despotism; in a republic, citizens have political power, and with that political power, responsibility for what they do or do not do with it.