I think you nailed it here. In many cases, it’s a direct attack on the morale of the citizenry, seeking to bury evidence of progress and emphasize a message of futility. No different from Russian propaganda that tries to convince Ukrainians not to fight, nothing is pure enough to be worth fighting for, they’ll just die for nothing, etc etc etc.
Hopelessness itself is the real enemy, the foundational source of strength of fascist authoritarians, what allows them to seize power regardless of incompetence. It can be attacked though. Directly.
Sometimes you just gotta slap a motherfucker. Sometimes rhetorically, rarely, actually physically. Either way, if you can break the feedback loop of hopelessness early, you give strength, courage and determination a chance to regain footing.
If fascists are going to be stopped, iron resolve is needed, as our forefathers showed. So maybe this time we don’t have to ourselves meet them, and their conscript armies, on the battlefield. As the Ukrainians are forced to.
It’s unfortunate, though. Unlike liberals or Marxists, fascists only really understand one language. And it’s not a civil one. Civil language is just a tool, to be harnessed in service of the only language they do actually acknowledge. Power.