this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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1930s US is apt and also not pretty.
Yes, although the US pulled itself back enough with some of FDR's reforms that it kicked the can down the road a few generations, whereas the Weimar Republic actually collapsed.
And here we are wondering if someone in office can do it again, or if the state is too far captured.
Captured implies that the State didn't already function as a tool of capital
The state and capital are both non-monolithic, as demonstrated by the rise of the US itself. We had a bunch of small-time plantation lords here in the states who didn't want to remain under the thumb of the English parliament (in which there was no colonial representation). Even then we could grasp the notion of equality and liberty for all, but only for specific definitions of equality and liberty (slaves, women and poor people not invited).
Everyone thinks they can control the One Ring. Everyone hopes that civil war will resort in their own ideology being established. Everyone wants their clan to benefit from the new regime. Hamilton believed voters would be aware of their own needs from government and would vote accordingly. (They do neither.) Our constitutional framers believed two parties is enough to keep each other in check. (Two parties can easily be controlled by plutocrats who subsidize candidates in both).
This is why we're in a quasi-stable not-quite feudal state. Once the Republican party can neuter elections (as per Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation) they won't have to meddle with Democrats, and we will see the state function as a tool of a narrower subset of capital. With autocracy, tyranny and genocide will follow.