It is unfair to get angry at people who were not brought up in wartime for not knowing how to deal with the rise of a dictator for several pragmatic and psychological reasons:
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1. Lack of Lived Experience
People raised in peaceful, stable societies lack direct exposure to the warning signs and mechanics of authoritarianism. Just as someone who’s never experienced a natural disaster might not know how to respond in a crisis, those without wartime or authoritarian experience lack the intuitive understanding needed to detect and respond to such threats early.
Context matters: People develop their political instincts and threat detection based on their environment. A stable democracy conditions citizens to assume that institutions are strong and self-correcting, not fragile.
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2. Democratic Norms Condition Passivity
Modern democratic systems often socialize people into trusting institutions and using formal, incremental means to resolve conflict: voting, petitioning, peaceful protest. Authoritarian threats often don’t play by these rules.
Asymmetrical expectations: Citizens expect the system to act as a check. When it doesn't, many assume things will "work out" because that's what they were taught to believe.
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3. Propaganda and Gradualism Work
Dictatorships rarely emerge overnight. They tend to rise gradually through legal means, exploiting existing systems and grievances. This boiling frog dynamic means that many citizens don’t recognize the danger until it’s far advanced.
Manipulation and normalization: Authoritarians often flood the information space with confusion, denial, and false equivalence, making people doubt whether things are really “that bad.”
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4. Moral Outrage Isn’t a Strategy
Getting angry at people for not knowing how to respond to a dictatorship is emotionally understandable, but strategically ineffective. Fear, confusion, and paralysis are normal reactions, especially for those untrained in resistance or unfamiliar with civil unrest.
Blame undermines solidarity: Shaming others alienates potential allies. Educating and organizing are more effective responses.
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5. Risk Is Asymmetric
Not everyone has the same capacity to resist. Some have children to protect, health conditions, immigration statuses, or jobs that could be lost. Others may be trapped in environments where speaking out invites retaliation.
Expecting uniform courage is naive: Wartime behavior often romanticizes resistance. In reality, survival instincts often outweigh ideological purity.
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6. Historical Amnesia Is Systemic, Not Personal
Most education systems do a poor job teaching how democracies fail. Civics is often shallow, history is sanitized, and examples of tyranny are abstracted into distant "lessons" rather than urgent warnings.
People can’t act on what they don’t know.
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Conclusion:
Being angry at people for failing to recognize or act against rising authoritarianism is counterproductive and, in most cases, misplaced. Most people are products of their time and environment. Rather than blame, the focus should be on education, organization, and creating resilient networks that prepare people to recognize and respond to these threats in real time.
Anger may be a valid emotional response, but it’s not a substitute for strategic thinking.
