Yeah, this is a common fascist recruitment tactic. "The world has gone to shit, things were better before."

This is the call to return to the golden past, a perfect time before "they" took it away from "us." In reality, as you point out, that golden past never existed. However, once people have it framed in their minds that their chance at utopia was "taken" from them, there's almost nothing they don't feel justified in doing to take it back.