The Weimar Republic and the DNC. Some history that matters today.
I posted this as a response, and several people asked me to post it as an OP. So, here goes.
The Weimar Republic was an attempt at democracy in Germany that followed WWI.
Why Study the Weimar Republic?
The history of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) illuminates one of the most creative and crucial periods in the twentieth century and serves as a significant case study of the critical issues of our own time. Many of the questions asked about the Weimar Republic are relevant to problems that individuals and societies face in the twenty-first century.
Citizens and leaders of the Weimar Republic had to wrestle with the problems of a newly developing democracy: the creation of a new constitution and political culture and the need for institutional reform particularly of the judiciary, the police, and the educational system.
The Weimar Republic experienced hyper-inflation and depression, gender and generational conflict, political violence and terrorism, conflicts dealing with the relationship between church and state, and racist antisemitism.
The fourteen years of the Weimar Republic were a way station on the road to genocide, and yet they also witnessed the struggle of many decent, sincere people to create a just and humane society in a time of great artistic creativity.
https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/readings/why-study-weimar-germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic
Thanks to a number of factors including the imposition of a huge debt for the cost of the war on the German people after WWI and enormous inflation that nearly destroyed not just their economy but the families of Germany, Germans suffered.
The failure of the Weimar Republic led to the NAZI movement. People were desperate. Hitler had what sounded like simple answers. The rest is history.
Our Democratic Party reminds me a bit of the leaders of the Weimar Republic. Rather helpless and maybe reluctant in trying to solve the underlying economic problems of our country. The trade agreements have made us into, on the international scale, a debtor nation. The banking industry combined with a low wage structure due to the flood of cheap labor imports had put our families and especially due to college tuition debt, our young families, into endless debt and despair.
The Democratic leadership is not responding agilely or honestly enough to the crisis we are beginning to be aware of. It is not just a crisis of lack of economic growth and of climate change and a failed trade policy. It is a crisis in our families and in our cities (think of Flint, Michigan as just a omen of what is to come if we don't make structural changes) and our nation.
Just thought I would add this.
Democratic leadership. Please wake up. Our country is in trouble. Trump is attracting supporters to his neo-fascist viewpoint because Democrats have not been strong and persuasive enough. That's your job. To be strong and to lead the country to new solutions. You are not doing it well. If you can't do better, please quit and let others give it a try. The country needs help, more than you are giving it.
Please.
The 2016 election is not just any election. Wealth has not trickled down to the middle class and the poor in America. We cannot as a nation continue business as usual. There is going to be a major change.
I think that Bernie is offering plans that are viable, that can be adjusted and modified to get the votes but that speak to the urgent problems we face like climate change and the need for better access to healthcare, childcare, better education and all the crises we face.
At this time, we need the DNC to lead us out of this despair and disunity in the country. Please do your jobs, and let the voters decide. Stop knocking yourselves out to push Hillary. She is not the creative problem-solver we need at this time.
Hillary's many scandals will be a big problem in the general election. We need the DNC to open up to new ideas and to working in a new, more effective way to educate Americans about the alternatives that are presenting themselves to us.
Please, DNC, get with it. Stop being so conservative and fearful. We need leadership from you, leadership to new solutions, not just same old, same old.
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