Even if you educate someone about the context and convince them your take on it is correct
Because we're skipping past this part to the "here's how it's relevant to today" part, I want to again emphasize that educating someone about the internal party dynamics of the Weimar Republic and convincing them your take is correct is a herculean task in its own right. This is reasons 1-100 of why delving into this topic is a poor way of convincing anyone of anything.
But assume you've educated me on all the context and I agree with you about who's at fault for what in 1920s Germany. When trying to apply that to today you still run into huge points of disagreement like:
- That was a parliamentary system and we have just two parties, right? Doesn't that change the "split the party" discussion quite a bit?
- What about all the ballot access issues that would come with splitting from Democrats?
- If we're successful splitting from Democrats, can't they just run in our primaries like we occasionally run in theirs? There isn't a way to expel people from parties in the U.S. the way there is in European parties, right?
- Was there a huge lobby on one side of the war credits debate that exists in parallel with a huge imperial interest in an overseas colony?
- Germany had just lost a devastating war in its front yard. The U.S. doesn't have anything like that today, right?
- Germany had its colonies stripped away after WWI while they U.S. is the premier imperial power of today. Doesn't that change a lot?
- Weren't the conditions of the average German worker far different from the conditions of the average U.S. worker today? How comparable is a guy driving an Uber to a guy in a factory?
The comparison adds more complexity rather than clarifies, and it opens up a dozen theoretical rabbit holes to get lost in.
