If "normies" means "the people in power" (which it usually does) --- there've been plenty of times throughout history when the most powerful group assumed it was invincible and ignored a threat until it was too late. Moreover, anyone may think they're a normie and not account for the fact that there's something about them that a movement that makes difference the enemy may might fixate on.

The most obvious example is Nazi anti-semitism --- some Germans who weren't Jewish may have been unbothered by it. Until their close family friends started disappearing. Until they came for homosexuals, and that one same-sex experience you had in Berlin when you were younger became a matter of life or death to you. Until they came after people who didn't look white enough --- and you didn't have blond hair. Until they came after people with mental illness --- you'd better hope nobody who knows you went through a period of depression once talks to the authorities. Until they came after anyone questioning their truth in earshot of someone sympathetic to their cause --- better hope you never made a joke about the current situation.

The Nazis swept to power on a wave of anti-semitism, and murdered 6 million Jews. And an additional 5 million non-Jewish people --- people from Slavic countries, Roma, Sinti, Black people, political prisoners, homosexuals, intellectuals, people with mental illnesses, people who weren't the right sort of Christian, people with the wrong color hair, people who stepped even a little out of line.

Certainly there were "normies" (defined very narrowly in the end, in that state) who turtled up and just waited for the war to be over. But in the end, all Germans, all Europeans' lives were bothered by what had happened.