I did not express my idea clearly. The narrative is that the past was awful, and to a degree that it sounds cartoonish. I personally think it's smelling like propaganda: "You think it's bad now? Well you should be grateful. Before we came around life was unlivable, etc."

So I'm asking why you think nostalgia is more powerful than: 1. the dominant narrative 2. The possibility of that narrative being true and living it.

Old people are not easily scammed because they are inherently stupid. It's because they grew up in a time when fewer people were trying to scam them, and are not on guard. I don't think seniors from the Soviet Union have this problem.