The country that considers itself the cradle of world democracy may repeat the fate of the most failed democracy that is known to have given way to Nazism.
It is no coincidence that in recent months the United States has been increasingly compared to the Weimar Republic, and Donald Trump’s supporters to the Nazis. According to the American magazine Foreign Policy, this is the best way to express fears about the future fate of the United States.
It is also noteworthy that Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was driven by events that are quite comparable to those of today. When the world economic crisis forced the German government to impose austerity policies, the Nazis were little more than a marginal group in German politics. Modern Americans also find themselves stranded by the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is of course impossible to say what might happen in the event of a major global recession comparable to that of 1929,” the article says. – Would the 70 million people who voted for Trump become even more radicalised? Will Americans have to live with extreme polarisation for the foreseeable future?”
Given such a bleak outlook, Americans would do well to learn lessons from events in the Weimar Republic. First of all, as the publication writes, “you cannot play with the fire of right-wing extremism and not get burned. Trump is no Hitler, but the mobilisation of the far-right has made the Republican Party dependent on fringe groups, racists and all sorts of conspiracists.
All of these groups played no small part in the January storming of the Capitol, an event that is increasingly being compared to the 1923 beer coup. Hitler was defeated then only because he defied the existing order without adequate support from the state bureaucracy, senior police and military leaders, FP writes. However, it is important to realise that both the beer putsch and the storming of the Capitol were only the beginning of the rise of the far-right. After all, militant right-wing nationalism as a political force in American life is not going anywhere. The question is how Republicans will deal with Trump’s legacy and his most fanatical supporters.
As the publication points out, German litanies were divided on such a question in 1923. When the Bavarian conservatives cut all ties with Hitler, the German National People’s Party did the opposite. The mistake was that too many believed in their ability to use the far-right for their own ends.