Any mass public under system collapse supports radical change promises without ideology

Evidence

Even had the clientele of the Nazi Party been of average education and political sophistication, there would be strong reason to doubt the degree to which prior awareness of Nazi ideology among its voters could be claimed. In view of the actual peculiarities of its mass base, the question verges on the absurd. The Nazis promised changes in a system that was near collapse. Under comparable stresses, it is likely that large numbers of citizens in any society (and particularly those without any long-term affective ties to more traditional parties) would gladly support ad hoc promises of change without any great concern about ideological implications. And typically, they would lack the contextual information necessary to assess these implications, even if some stray details were absorbed. We believe this response would be true of any mass public and not only those that, like Germany, had experienced only a brief democratic tradition. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1975

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely counterintuitive generalization: Nazi support is attributed not to uniquely German conditions or ideology but to a generalizable psychology of system-collapse publics lacking affective party ties — a strong, refutable claim about political behavior in any society.
• SEED: Article angle: what does this imply for how we should read contemporary populist surges — are voters attracted to the ideology itself or merely to ad hoc promises of change amid stress?