When Democracy Gives Hatred a Voice
How Economic Crisis, Political Resentment and Social Fear Can Turn Democratic Institutions Against Themselves
My history teacher forgot to emphasize that Adolf Hitler was allowed to exist in a democratic system. It was not he himself that necessarily pushed everyone to hatred, but rather the environment. The major concern for the Western world is history repeating itself in the instance the Artificial Intelligence bubble collapses.
It is important to note that democracies are not infallible systems; they take the tone of the people. The government intends to play to the whims, emotions, needs, and desires of the people in order to get votes. There are not set rules on how to obtain votes, but rather rules on means which are considered illegitimate to obtain votes.
In previous decades, identity politics, political correctness, and the need to err on the side of caution when speaking about minorities, emigrants, and marginalized groups were respected by both sides of the political spectrum. After a wave of democracy and liberalism swept the free world and globalism spread through the world after the Cold War, politics intended to be inclusive, development meant everyone, and democracy was a system not to be questioned, for it worked. Thus, politicians remained centric, refused to regress on the progress of the previous decades, and accepted everyone in the new world.
Then, with the rise of Donald Trump and the far-right parties in Europe, the language that was once deemed wrong to get votes, in some countries illegal, found its way into the lexicon of world politics.
Suddenly, there were Western principles to uphold and that were under attack with the rise of immigration into the country. With many immigrants ‘refusing’ to adopt American values and culture, they became the enemy of the system, in a thriving economy... or so it seems.
The reality that marked the United States of America has been the growth of the economy, but not collectively, rather amongst the selective few. Identified by economists as the K-shaped economy, the wealthy continue to benefit financially from the economic growth, while those who are impoverished and lower economic brackets continue to feel the growing pressure of an increasingly more expensive economy. The pressure continues to grow for people who are left uneducated and protected by the social safety net.
In the West, where white populations are decreasing as more families begin to mix, immigration continues to occur, and the government continues to have no resolve for rising expenses. White people feel the threat of being a minority, of losing their dignity, and of not having their place in society. No different to the Germans that gave way to the Nazis.
It is important to highlight that in just 4 years, the Nazi Party became the largest political party. In 1928, the German Nazi Party earned just over 2 percent of the votes in the general federal elections. By mid-1932, it had received 38 percent of votes in the national elections, becoming the largest political party in the Reichstag.
Already, Germany had been bound to reparation in the First World War, which restricted its economic development. Its economic activity peaked in Germany in 1928 until the Great Depression hit in 1929, causing a sharp downturn in investment.
Germany was worst affected because American banks called in all of their foreign loans at very short notice. These loans, agreed under the Dawes Plan in 1924, had been the basis for Weimar’s economic recovery from the disaster of hyperinflation. The German economy collapsed upon these loans being removed, as they helped pay reparations and funded German industry.
Over the winter of 1929–30, the number of unemployed rose from 1.4 million to over 2 million. By the time Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, one in three Germans were unemployed, with the figure hitting 6.1 million. Industrial production had also more than halved over the same period. In over just 4 short years, an election cycle, the Germans graced with an environment were given the avenue to hate. That same threat is present today.
According to the New York Times, an economist estimated that an A.I. crash would wipe out $20 trillion in American wealth — far more than the dot-com crash in 2000 or even the 2008 financial crisis. The risk is present and ever-growing as more money continues to be pumped into these AI systems. The economy is already exposed to major risk that is likely to have ripple effects across industry.
The risk remains that under a relatively stable economy, where economic conditions are good, in comparison to those of economic recession, hatred has already been on the rise for all groups. Whether it be Jewish people, Palestinian people, Muslims, and a plethora of people who continue to have their identity questioned and denied publicly by officials, it is unlikely that there will be means to stop it if the economy comes down too.
The Great Depression gave way for the political establishment to be taken over by power who intended not only to alter it but demolish it, and they were given such an opportunity. Those hit hardest by the economic downturn held the incumbent parties responsible for their situation, punishing them by voting for the Nazi Party.
In the 2024 election, it was Trump who benefitted from the economic pressure felt under the Biden administration. In the coming midterms, it seems as though it will be the Democrats who will benefit. But either way, in the end, there is a moment and opportunity that can and may be capitalised on if the world is not careful.
In a world where prosperity is subject to economic standing is one where innocent lives are lost for no other reason but to validate someone’s hatred, to enshrine the system, and to reinforce the idea that things were better once. However, history continues to dispute; the world has continued to grow, and people live far longer now than decades prior. War takes far fewer lives than the millions of the First and Second World Wars. The past can never be better, but rather how the world defines and develops its future.
It was not even a century ago when the world declared to find a new means of cooperation and peace. Already, the forces of the far right that believe not in conservatism but rather a revolution where might is right, and they wage war against anyone who threatens white minorities, lurk here in South Africa. Who cares nothing for the value of humanity and the sanctity of every human life? If they are allowed to wage war on the world, it will not be them who pay, but those who become the villain in their history, those who are deemed not worthy of democracy.
It was that which I wish they had emphasized more and never forgot to tell the world: that Hitler was not born from nothing, but the desperation and hatred of people who had never had to struggle. Hitler was allowed to exist in a democratic system.