The people who said that are still saying it. Few minds appear to have really changed. Everyone just believes the same positions, harder.

But the people who were saying that have been proved right, and those who shouted them down are now just putting their fingers in their ears.

I've seen actual people (mostly this year) who write stuff like, "sure, I can't deny that this is fascism now, but you've been calling lawlessness for the rich, concentration of power in the public and private sectors both, militarization of the police, the war on drugs, free speech zones, surveillance capitalism, voter suppression, pushes to roll back civil rights, and many of our wars, fascist, for decades! It's not my fault I didn't realize it was for-real this time."

They're so close to getting it. So very, frustratingly close.

At least one of them got published somewhere recently, might have been The Atlantic. You just wish you could smack them with a clue-stick.