One of the most challenging obstacles working against ordinary citizens in the West is the self-satisfying presumption that Western institutions and philosophies are inherently immune from the rise of totalitarianism.  This is an understandable blind spot.  Their identities have been forged, to various degrees, in the great traditions of Enlightenment notions of liberty, free speech, and natural rights.  Surely the victors over communism, fascism, and Nazism cannot then fall victim to the madness of those same philosophies collapsing their systems from within.  This “Us/Them” self-delusion has kept the citizenry from recognizing tyranny inside its gates.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/02/the_power_of_the_powerless_is_real.html