Here's the Blues Brothers scene that first introduces them. In case anyone else was like me and instantly wanted to watch it.

Yes, but that's the thing... the media portrayed the far-right as laughable "fringe movements" back then - we didn't have the internet, and the connection between capitalist societies and the far-right (whose violence protects them) was pretty much hidden from us by the very people who empower the far-right when working-class people get uppity.

Worldwide they haven't.

Exactly. It was annoying but not overwhelming. Now we've got politicians catering to the nazi/nationalist crowd like they're some kind of demi-god.

Tbf it’s always been overt the top, but after moot sold it, it got way worse.

Not answering for girlfreddy but I'd also like to chime in. I don't know how to say this, but like America used to feel different 30 years ago. Even though rights were slow coming for women in the workplace and eventually gay people, it felt like we were always either stopped or moving slowly forward. Maybe it was just a sheltered existence, having all of the benefits of a pretty damn good public school system in a quiet corner of the suburban area, but I fucking swear, there was like a clear line to this nation becoming some kind of next civilization and it felt like everyone shared it for a minute there.

I don't know if it was 9/11 or the Neoliberal creep. Maybe the 08' crash, or the Obama election and the feelings that came after. I can tell you though some time around 2010-2011 I started telling people that white supremacists and fascists were coming. I'm sure it was a bunch of little things, but they all started to click around then. I watched this movie with my mom, and now I'd largely consider her the equivalent of a Nazi. She doesn't think she is, but she's also brainwashed to the point where she gave up our relationship over being unable to confront her christofacist ideas. She liked the movie and was disturbed by the racism back when we watched it.

A lot of all this can be pinned to Regan and his welfare queen bullshit that he purposely put out to race bait and fire up the right. Still, they all kinda stood by and just stewed in their closeted prejudice to the point where all this shit felt like a legitimate surprise when it began to snowball together. A lot of it is intertwined with their feelings on Obama for sure. A half black guy made most of the people around him look like lame dumpy hicks. A lot of America couldn't process that so they started to try to delude their reasoning, rather then coming to terms with it. He's a black Muslim, with a fake birth certificate. He's a weed smoking smooth talker. He's a new world order pawn of the elites. They still hate him so much that Q made a detour and said his wife is a secret transsexual and by reason he a closeted fraud...

Anyway, got off track. But again, I'll stand behind it that none of this somehow felt possible pre 2000, and largely still into like 08'. At least to a much younger and naive me.

Edit: rereading this, I kinda wander a lot. Sorry if it detracted at all from the convo. I'm gonna leave it though cause it still feels personal and true, and I'd be sad to delete this after all the memories I got to think back on. I am old.

Got to add, it didn't just happen in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

There were fascists in every country in the world, and a lot of them stayed in power after WW2.

Most of Asia was fascist ruled at one point or another. South America was almost completely ruled by various fascist dictators for most of the second half of the century.

But the more on topic point is that a large percentage of Americans of the time, had wanted the US to join WW2 on the side of the Germans. There were men who were sent to kill Nazis who had marched in support of the Nazis at Madison Square Garden.

That's not even counting the KKK, which was falling apart due to the leadership embezzling funds, but just a decade prior had enjoyed hundreds of thousands of members.

In 1930 the Klan had membership counting 11 Governors, 16 US Senators, and roughly 75 members of the House.

The Klan then had a resurgence in the 1950s, and well into the 70s all in response to the civil rights movement.

The Klan might be treated like a joke these days, but the sort of families that have multiple generations of klansman, don't teach love and understanding to their children.

There are little towns in the south that have been cultivating their racism since long before the civil war.

Hell, the state of Oregon was so racist that the banned black people entirely. The people who did that had kids who joined the Klan, so on and so forth, and now there are still places in eastern Oregon that black and brown people have to avoid on fear of death.

White nationalism has been part of who we are as a nation for a very long time. Thankfully its popularity is fading, which only makes the adherents louder and more dangerous.

... on a large scale.

In the 90's it was still not nationwide. Now it is, in America, Canada, the UK, Israel, China, and even some African nations have become nationalist ... but back when this movie came out that was unheard of.