At the moment, it would seem America is suffering through a deep state of misinformation and emotional trauma. The causes of this in any Democracy are usually different, but some general patterns can be seen over time. It is also true that some Democracies recover, become stronger, and some collapse. We are in the delicate moment of trying to nudge American Democracy away from the edge of a cliff, without seeming to disrupt the basic economic prosperity which has given us so much opportunity. We know even that prosperity is in danger of slipping away, as a few people gain the majority of any increase in economic activity, year after year, and the vast majority lose the economic opportunity year after year, which was the hallmark of American Democracy in several periods of our history.
While its best not to point to any particular time or nation and say, “We are just like that,” it is sometimes instructive to see what other nations have gone through in their own “crises of democracy,” and why they either descended into chaos and authoritarianism, or pulled away from the edge and became stronger democracies.
The case of Germany from 1918 to 1926 is particularly interesting, because, like the US is, or was, Germany was highly industrialized, prosperous, with an ample government mandated and funded social system of support for workers including paid leave, sick days and retirements, and although ruled by a Monarchy and Aristocracy for the most part (arguably also like America) had some measure of representation for the people in the Reichstag, which was populated mostly by Socialists, Social Democrats and Democrats in opposition to the older system of Corporate Enterprise allied with Royal Hereditary political dominance. This was the Right versus Left alignment then and there.
Despite the representative parliament, Germany found herself in a war ginned up by the emotional petulance and inferiority complex of The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who faced abject defeat in 1918 and abdicated in favor of his son, Prince Max. Max decided that the monarchy was done, as as a good democrat, looked around for a competent leader, and settled in a Democratic Moderate who had supported the war effort, even though he led some munitions plant strikes and angered the Right Wing, and angered the Communinsts because he got the workers back in the bomb factories by making some big concessions to the War Government, and these Democrats with some Social Policy leanings, (It is hard to even call them Socialists because they believed Capitalism was the engine and prosperity of the nation and not to be messed with too much, very much like America’s “socialists” (not) today) More like Centrist Democrats. We like the workers to be happy, but we don’t like the Capitalists to be unhappy. Try squaring THAT circle. They tried, just as we try.
They succeeded in putting a government together, the Council of the People’s Deputies, and proceeded to argue amongst themselves for a few years, from 1919 to 1925, the Weimar Republic, and it needs to be said, again, a real homegrown German Democracy, created by the Social Democrats and the Socialists and the Democrats, passionately and with great division and many resignations, firings, exclusions, rehirings, rehabilitations and, to the public, a great mess of just inside baseball.
As far as leadership, there was the perception that no one was driving the bus except for France and England, as the US had said, goodbye. We didn’t get our League of Nations, and that would have solved everything, we thought, so we just went dark. No comment. It was Europe’s problem, we are going back to our party, which we did quite lavishly, funded by War Profits and Speculation and Hollywood and New Gadgets and Cars for everyone proceeds.
And so the Social Democracy in Germany struggled on. It struggled on internally and externally, and finally, when the President of the Republic died in office, hounded by the Right Wing for “leading” worker safety and overtime strikes in bomb factories during the war, Germany fell into a yearning for a strongman to tell them that all this talk and theorizing and political backing and forthing and to-ing and fro-ing democracy schtuff commotion was just weakness. What Germany needed, the Strongman said, was clarity of purpose, and we got the very dark era from 1932 to 1945. Democracy voted itself out of existence in Germany in 1932.
After the war, the Big One, was over in 1945, the Social Democrats and the Socialists and the Democrats said, “Ok, we told you so. We told you that would happen. Now, we are taking over, and we don’t care if you don’t like all the talk and opinions and theorizing. Your problem. We are going to govern this place as a Social Democracy/Socialist/Democratic Republic, whatever you want to call it.”
They revived and revised the Old Republic of 1918 to 1932, this time with the help (and strongarm compulsion as well) of New Deal Roosevelt Democrats from America, and then decided, “You know, our differences are not that great. We will call ourselves the SDS, the German Social Democracy Party, and include all kinds of people who generally agree.”
They established a Think Tank, called the Fredrich Ebert Foundation, after the First President of the German Republic, a “socialist,” (not really, but in European terminology, close enough,) and today, they have branches of the Friedrich Ebert Siftung (Foundation) in many countries, including the US, to spread the word about how Germany got over its worst Progressive and Social Democracy vs Authoritarianism impulses by adopting, formally, the principles of Social Democracy and bringing together all the various argumentative factions of Socialism, Social Democracy, and Democrats for the first working example of a government which can function under a guiding ideology. They have prepared this cool and clear animated (sort of) video and posted it on their website:
“What is Social Democracy?”
At this moment in American history, it would perhaps be a good idea for all Socialists, Social Democrats, Progressives and Democrats to consider a statement of three principles we all agree on, and stick with it for the next four years. If we can survive this period, there is a good chance we can, like the Social Democrats in 1919 in Germany, rise from the chaos of militarism and authoritarianism to create a more Perfect Union. See if this video is helpful in any way. Our task is to prevent the descent into chaos which democracies are sometimes victim to, and understand that it is not inevitable, but based on the divisiveness and strongminded and uncompromising personalities of the Center Democrats and Center Democratic Left and Left and the Progressive Left and Farther Left, and whomever else is out there further in Left Field.
www.fesdc.org/...