First, my critique started with your clearly bad comparison of people freezing to death last year is like comparing how many people died from covid before the pandemic started. It is irrelevant.
Following your logic I could say very few people died of freezing to death in Ukraine in 2020/2021, so nothing to worry about this winter, right? Oh, wait. Did something change this year?
Second, in Texas about 200 people died in one week from the lack of heat. In 2020 the summer heat waves in Europe killed well over 1000 in only a few weeks. An entire winter without heat will most likely kill thousands in Germany alone. In a country of 90 million, that is a small percentage.
Tying both together is the war and the sanctions on Europe by Europe that Europeans were only marginally in favor of at the start of the war, and are majority against at this point. These sanctions are not a freak storm, they are manmade by allegedly democratic governments not doing what their public wants. THAT is the issue.
Thousands will probably die, many thosands will get sick, millions will become financially troubled because of sanctions their governments have levied that the public is not in favor of, an easily reversible situation.
I exepct if the sanctions are not reversed, you'll see chaos on the continent in Europe as we are currently seeing in England right now. Governments will fall. Right-wing demagogues will become more popular as the people see "so-called" liberal leaders failing their consituents.
Hitler came to power due to a number of factors, but massive inflation followed by high unemployment and the fact that democratically elected leaders were not fixing the problems. The Weimar Republic was hamstrung by German oligarchs who didn't favor democracy or helping the general population. Italy was ahead of Germany 100 years ago, and well whaddya know, Italy just elected a prime minister who is a fan of Mussolini, the original fascist.
As someone who has studied history and is watching this unfold in the local news, there is good reason to be afraid of where this is going.
Statistics show that only 4% of a popluation needs to demonstrate for a cause to be successful. If hundreds of people start freezing to death this winter while factories close due to lack of gas and the government of Germany says, "we stand with Ukraine no matter what my voters think," there will be more reactions on the street. There have already been large protests in multiple countries. Things can reach a tipping point very quickly. Again, this is a good reason to be afraid where this is going.
