[SauronOfMordor]

The scary thing is that in hindsight the evil of Hitler is so clear, but was that so in 1933? Today the evil is clear enough but there are so many that stand to gain from it.

In 1933, many members of the middle class were FAR more worried about the Communists, and embraced Hitler as the only candidate who was serious about stopping them. Keep in mind that Germany experienced an attempted Communist revolution a few years earlier in 1919, a bloody Communist revolution occured in Hungary in 1919. Germans in contact with ethnic German relatives in Russia and Ukraine were hearing about the purges, killings, and the Ukrainian terror famine, etc, etc. People were scared enough to elect ANYBODY who seemed a strong leader

[FFranco]

There is an interesting book called ‘They Thought They Were Free’ by a journalist (I have forgotten the author’s name). It consists of interviews with a variety of Nazi Party members about why and how they joined the Party. There were a variety of reasons. The Nazis tried to be all things to all men.

Analysis of voting patterns in Germany leading up to 1933 shows the electorate becoming more and more radicalized. They were abandoning centrist parties and moving to the radical left and right, the Communists and Nazis.

[Travis McGee]

Also factor in the economic collapse/hyperinflation of the Weimar years. Economic depression can make a society go off the rails, if it was unbalanced before. IOW, it ratchets up the problems, magnifies the social ills, boils the water in the social stew pot.

That’s my biggest worry for the USA over the next few years, that an economic downturn/recession/depression will lead to social conflagration as demagogues exploit people’s fears and ignorance.