In understanding what is happening now, it is not the 1930s but the 1990s that provides the most relevant historical parallel. In the early part of that decade post-communist democracies in central and eastern Europe suffered massive shocks as they moved from state-run economies to market-based ones. Many industries that had been propped up during the communist experiment collapsed. Living standards collapsed and as a consequence unemployment soared.
The most significant political reaction was not a 1930s-style surge in support for the extremes, but a powerful, almost universal anti-incumbency swing. In dozens of elections in the transition countries throughout the 1990s almost no government won re-election.
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