Simple: if enough people do not trust the government and do not go to vote, the government loses its democratic legitimacy - and fringe extremists gain ever more power. What happened to the Republican Party should ring all alarm bells - the Bush era was bad enough, but look just how far the moderates have eroded from the party since these times. The fact that the current top runner for the GOP Presidency nomination in 2024 will be a man twice impeached and convicted of (for now at least) sexual assault or that a complete fraud (George Santos, if that even is his legal real name?!) could gain a seat in Congress is worrying - where have all the people gone that would have said "no, we want someone who can at least behave themselves in a somewhat decent manner worthy of the office"?

The alternative can be seen in France: many have voted Macron purely because he was (and is) better than le Pen and the other parties have all but eroded - and now the country is embroiled in riots because, surprise, the population didn't vote for this shit of a pension reform: they voted to simply not have a fascist in office.

> Over a hundred million people died in the 20th century from trusting their government too much, nothing compares to that.

Hitler's rise to power was precisely the other way around - mainly due the exploding inflation after WW1, an economy hampered by reparations and the subsequent loss of trust in democracy and the government. The people flocked to Hitler because he ran on a platform of scapegoating - Hitler's platform was to blame the "rich Jewish elites" and that their extinction would save the people.

The most troubling thing for me is just how many parallels the rise of Hitler has with our current economic situation. Rampant inflation and explosion of costs of living, government budgets strained by the combined cost of massive economic crises (2008ff financial crisis, euro crisis, migration crisis, COVID, Russian invasion), external enemies to rally the people behind (China), a loss of trust in democracy accompanied by a world-wide rise of charismatic strongmen (Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Xi, Salvini/Meloni), lies and propaganda running unchecked, open violence in the streets... history is repeating itself, right as the last survivors of the 1933-1945 era have died - and those few that are still alive have kept sounding the alarm for years now without being heard.

> It also has higher incomes that allow for such types of frivolous spending

We have the same net income as the Americans in Europe (ludicrous tech salaries aside), we simply pay collectively with our taxes for stuff that Americans have to pay for on their own, first and foremost healthcare and retirement.