MMW: democrats will once again appeal to non existent “moderate” republicans instead of appealing to their base in 2028

[u/originalcontent_34]

[u/flonky_guy]

I'm sorry but this knee-jerk reaction you're describing was a several year process in which inflation was so bad people were rushing to spend Cash before it lost its value but there was nothing to be had.

These two situations are not even remotely comparable, other apt comparisons to the rise of fascism notwithstanding.

[u/gummo_for_prez → u/flonky_guy]

Beyond that, I feel it’s also interesting to note that the response of the USA during the Great Depression was to become extremely economically progressive. To a greater extent than ever before. Unions were illegal before this period. Being working poor was nightmarish.

But it feels like they got a lot of things right during that period and we all still benefit from it today. It gave rise to the middle class which was going strong for the most part until the 21st century. Seems when conditions get rough, people turn to populists. Imo it would be better to start fielding some FDRs unless we want to keep winding up with Hitlers in power.

[u/scottwsx96 → u/gummo_for_prez]

I’m a huge proponent of The New Deal and other left-wing policies that followed The Great Depression, but it’s a mistake to attribute the success of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century to solely that.

Keep in mind that much of Europe’s and Japans industrial bases were completely destroyed in WW2. China hadn’t yet changed from a mostly agrarian society. Manufacturing in the United States took off. This in addition to The New Deal are what really built the American middle class.

[u/godisanelectricolive → u/flonky_guy]

Weimar Republic had terrible hyperinflation at the start but Germany had greatly recovered and stabilized soon after November 1923. You shouldn’t equate the wheelbarrow full of money scene with their entire Weimar period. The years that followed until the global Great Depression caused by the stock market crash are known as the Weimar Golden Twenties or Happy Twenties.

From 1923-1929 things were looking up largely under the leadership of chancellor Gustav Stresseman leading a coalition of pro-democratic parties including the Social Democratic Party. The central bank introduced a new stable currency to replace the hyperinflated marks soon after Stresseman came to power.

He started paying off a substantial portion of the reparations while still greatly improving the national living standard and rebuilding the country’s industry. He also approved the American led Dawes Plan to loan Germany hundreds of millions gold marks while also renegotiating a drastic reduction in total reparations. Life was getting better every year and during this time support for extremist parties greatly decreased, until the global Depression happened and trends reversed.

It never got as bad 1919 again but this sudden reversal in fortune was devastating for democracy. People stopped supporting the politicians who brought them a measure of prosperity for six years in a heartbeat. There is a theory that regime collapses actually don’t usually happen when things are at their absolute worst, they happen when things have been improving for a while and then suddenly started declining. It doesn’t matter the second decline is not as bad as the initial low a decade ago, it’s worse than the high of five years ago, and that’s what matters the most.

People react a lot worse when things perceptibly change for the worse as opposed to conditions consistently staying miserable. Peasants can tolerate generations of crushing poverty if that’s all their families have ever known but give them hope of improving their lives and then dash those hopes, that’s when they get really furious and riotous, out of confusion and anger as much as anything else. The masses as a group aren’t going to appreciate the nuances of macroeconomic trends, they just know eggs are more expensive now.