At night, after the children are in bed, as I settle down for the evening, I put something horrible on TV.

I fold clothes or brush my teeth to stories of dictators, murderers and mysteries — anything to remind me that no matter how stressful my life gets, it could be a lot worse.

Lately, it's been documentaries about Nazis, the party's rise to power and World War II.

The other night, my husband came in and caught sight of the show I was watching.

"Not World War II again," he said with a groan. "Hitler was evil. What's left to say?"

I laughed. Agreed, the topic has been covered ad nauseam in movies, TV and books. Nazis have become cartoonish bad guys, the ultimate shortcut to villainy. What's left, indeed?

"It's about the Beer Hall Putsch," I explained, the failed coup that Hitler tried in 1923, long before he came to power.

The "putsch," which means "coup" in German, is fascinating for many reasons, but I was mostly struck by its stupidity.

The attempted coup d'etat was drunken and disorganized, hastily conceived and poorly planned. Hitler's men kidnapped but soon released government officials after extracting a promise of fealty to Hitler and his mission. It never occurred to the morons that the men might have been lying to get away with their lives.

"It makes me think of Jan. 6," I told my husband, and the way history has been rewritten to cast the Capitol rioters as harmless idiots.

No one could be that stupid while also being dangerous, the argument seems to go. Jan. 6 was merely a rowdy romp through the halls of Congress that got a little bit out of hand.

We don't know if there was a future Adolf Hitler in the crowds on Jan. 6, 2021. It took more than a decade after the putsch for Hitler to come to power in Germany. In between, he served a short prison term for his part in the coup.

But in attendance on Jan. 6 was Nick Fuentes, a troll who's made a career out of hatred. He has sniggered and joked on his show, doubting the Holocaust's death totals, and casually tossing around racial slurs and antisemitism. Despite that, Fuentes isn't socially isolated and turns up in the wackiest of places, at dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and shaking hands on stage with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Now, Fuentes has slyly skirted the line between virulently bigotry and advocating genocide, and Trump and Greene both tried (a little) to distance themselves from him. But it's important to remember, and history reminds us, that things don't usually start out clear-cut. Like a tumbling rock that turns into an avalanche, hatred becomes bolder over time. It shows its true face only after repeat exposure has inured us to it.

We roll our eyes and mumble "that guy's crazy" when Kanye West says "I like Hitler" in an interview with Alex Jones. But West wasn't kicked off the show or forbidden from returning. He's been received, mostly politely, by some in politics, including Fuentes. One prominent conservative, Milo Yiannopoulos, was even connected with West's presidential campaign until they fired him.

So, though it may be true that Nazis aren't new, neither are they particularly old. You'll have to pardon me for thinking these books and documentaries have more to teach me.

For though I'm not convinced we're on a highway toward World War II, it helps to know the route.

Call me alarmist if you like. I don't mind.

Though history may not be repeating itself yet, it may, one day. And if I want to never forget, the first step is learning what to remember.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: 10302144 at Pixabay