Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's obviously grey area, but a lot of comments in this thread come really close to the definition of complacency
You should know that the most notable politicians to use that phrase were Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, and George W Bush. It is the hallmark of extremism.
I dunno, I think Cicero is at least as notable as Bush, if not Mussolini or Lenin. Orwell—who used it to describe a fundamental fact of the nature of war, always and everywhere—wasn’t a politician, but certainly a notable figure. The uses of perhaps the greatest significance are in the Bible, both in Joshua and by Christ in the Gospels.
But perhaps the most relevant to the immediate situation are figures like:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”
Elie Wiesel: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,”
John Stuart Mill, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing”.
Or the form written as confessiom from the side complicit by complacency, Rev. Martin Niemöller:
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First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
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> It is the hallmark of extremism.
The recognition that inaction is a choice with consequences, and that complacency is acquiescence is very much not limited to those espousing extremism.