Is it a pendulum then? When it’s less obvious is it still happening (and they just do a better job of hiding it from a more sensitive public) or is actual positive change happening?

There’s this saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but that somehow feels less true right now. It seems like you can be openly crooked in a democracy as long as you appeal to a sufficient majority for other reasons not related to your crookedness.

There is a kind of pendulum, the predictable and periodic failure of capitalism. Whenever a crisis happens, it's hard to sustain the fiction that capitalism is good for most of us. Some shift left, realising that billionaires are in control and can be defeated. Others shift right, mistakenly blaming those already oppressed (poor, immigrants, LGBT).

Sunshine is clearly not the best disinfectant, since we see fascist rhetoric and violence spreading. Repeating a lie enough can work, especially when people are already angry and desperate. And especially when it's merely an intensification of the same rhetoric that capitalism spreads anyway.

Put differently, after capitalism has shifted the Overton window to the right by enough, fascism becomes more generally acceptable.