Because many of them secretly agreed with him all along. They weren’t enforcing rules against queerphobia and hate speech because they believed it, they were doing it because they were afraid to express how they really feel and wanted general people to think they weren’t evil.
It’s the same reason big tech corpos did pride month. They never actually cared, they wanted people to think they did though.
Fear of retribution from him.
And they stand to gain by being part of the club.
Fascism cannibalizes with much tact, as much so as a game of checkers. They demand loyalty while asking you to display you are not loyal to those you serve/ally with. Then, when it becomes your turn to be fed into the machine, your betrayal to then scapegoat is all they need to justify your lack of trustworthiness.
The onion layers peel until the nation itself is fully cannibalized
