I've certainly never met any neo-Nazis. Not to say they don't exist, but if they are truly as common as I've been told, I think I'd have encountered some.
I've certainly never met any neo-Nazis. Not to say they don't exist, but if they are truly as common as I've been told, I think I'd have encountered some.
As some who had been lucky enough to live many years in both rural Florida and urban California, I can tell you beyond a doubt people are mostly (99%) reasonable, and mostly the same, they are just acting on different priorities, beliefs, and data :)
And yet, actual fascist governments have come to power even in nominally democratic countries.
People might only be "reasonable" when left to their own devices but there could always come a day when propaganda, sectarianism and social turmoil gets so out of hand that people don't see so reasonable anymore.
Now you might think the threshold for an "extreme number" is much higher than drawing this type of crowd, but there are enough people for whom that is a big deal, that it makes for compelling news that gets views. Way too many for me, that's for sure.
I also happen to know a lot people who have the same ideology that he have, on some discord servers, probably less sharpened and less cultivated (i mean, you've got to read a bit of Nietzsche if you want to argue in good faith with this ideology). I'd say they are proto-fascist, or proto-nazi. And actually, a lot of people i see on the internet called neo-nazi are in fact proto-nazi. It's interesting, because i've seen old TV interviews of 60s and 70s philosophical debate, i've read old books, and they were much, much more philosophically advanced than the current debates are.
By the way, i use nazism to make a small distinction with "usual" fascism. To me, nazis empathize more on personnal success than "regular" fascists, who are more deterministic (genes, culture makes more difference than effort and good will). I worked that out with my self-proclaimed fascist friend, if you disagree i'd like a criticism of the idea.
You could have met plenty and not known it. Or your sample size of acquaintances doesn't include people who frequent 4chan.