A new poll shows World War II's legacy is getting muddled

[Mosby]

Eighty years ago this week, the war in Europe came to an end with Germany’s surrender to the Allied forces of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and France. Nearly six years of brutal fighting on the continent formally concluded, though World War II would drag on for four more months in the Pacific. Nonetheless, May 1945 marked the moment at which the world’s attention turned from repelling the Nazi threat to determining how those responsible could be held accountable with an eye toward preventing any similar destruction from occurring again.

That effort was necessarily imperfect. Polling released by YouGov on Tuesday suggests that the lessons people in Europe and the U.S. have learned from the conflict over the intervening eight decades are not always in alignment — nor are views within the U.S. itself.

Eighty years is a long enough time for any moral tale to become blurry, both because there are fewer people alive who had firsthand experience with the relevant events and because those looking to do the blurring have more time to hone their case. Indeed, we find ourselves in a moment where right-wing extremism is surging in both the U.S. and Europe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/06/world-war-memory-anniversary-poll/

[WarGamer]

1. Misguided and historically illiterate.

The 20th Century was NOT the century of Right Wing anything.

That's the Reader's Digest Cliff Notes Imbecilic version of revisionist history.

Here's reality.

The 20th Century was the Century of the clash of Ideologies. Communism vs the Status Quo, Communism vs Fascism, vs Capitalism, vs Religion, vs Oligarchy and the Monarchy, etc... (see all the Colonial Wars)

It actually goes back to the French Revolution and the European Revolutions of 1848...

But to focus on the 20th Century...

By 1900 there was already an undercurrent of anti-tsar, anti-monarchy, anti-capitalist, anti-church sentiments. And revolutions had been successful in Europe in the prior Century...

So after the disastrous Russian entry into WW1, the Russian Revolution began. Of course, the Bolsheviks won.

For the next 20 years... European nations split apart, with the Communists facing off against the institutionalists.

Every European country in the early 20th Century struggled with the Communists seeking change and power.

Each and every "Right Wing" group or Government that sprang up at the time was DIRECTLY in response to the Communists.

Without the Communists... there is no Mussolini or Hitler.

The Tsar and Kaiser would have remained in power. For better or worse...

[mopinko]

2. funny. i just had this convo.

talking w a friend about tsf, of course, i stated, as i often do, that i wd rather see him firmly established as a mad man than a criminal. better 25s than impeachment. and that ppl dont seem to recognize megalomaniacs when we see them any more.
my friend- how cd they not?
me- i think old folks like us who were either around for ww2, or close enough to rly know what happened, understand but the youngens just dont.

sometimes i hate to b right.