> What kinds of lessons can we draw from the comparisons?
The comparisons make good for good wonkery, but the lessons you can draw from it would be completely spurious. Unless you think history is merely the repetition of the same.
Two huge differences: One, today in the US, no one party or governing apparatus has made itself coterminous with the state; the existence of the tea parties indicates that Nazism is at bay, not at the door. Second, the Nazis' economic and military buildup was done in isolation and in many ways through thievery and corruption. The US today, on the other hand, draws investment by consent and agreement, not violent expropriation or trickery. While Nazi Germany developed largely as an exception the world capitalist economy, the US today stands at the center of it.
> The real basis of Germany’s recovery was rearmament from 1934 onward.
Yeah, but there was also a Keynesian element to the military buildup: huge infrastructure projects, attempts to increase aggregate demand, full employment. All those national-development things everyone was so crazy about in the 30s.