Mass unemployment in 1932 Germany drove voters to seek change at any price
Evidence
In contrast to the propaganda for Hindenburg that appealed to those who wanted the status quo at any priceāand in 1932 that meant unemployment for almost half the German peopleāthe candidates of the movements had to reckon with those who wanted change at any price (even at the price of destruction of all legal institutions), and these were at least as numerous as the ever-growing millions of unemployed and their families. The Nazis therefore did not wince at the absurdity that āa vote for Thalmann is a vote for Hindenburg,ā the Communists did not hesitate to reply that āa vote for Hitler is a vote for Hindenburg,ā both threatening their voters with the menace of the status quo in exactly the same way their opponents had threatened their members with the specter of the revolution. ā Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 662
Categorization
- XREF: This mechanism of a destructured electorate seeking change-at-any-price connects to later Arendtian analysis of how movements displace parties, and to the Islamophobia readings on how status-quo parties lose legitimacy.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: how do unemployed masses become available for totalitarian recruitment specifically because they want change at any price rather than any concrete program?