The crisis of Weimar was the occasion of a great politicisation of German society, the polarisation of society with the parties of the extremes, Communists and Nazis becoming more weighty relative to the centre, the Social Democrats and Catholics.
Is that like America right now?
I am not so sure.
The decisive trend, surely, is the depoliticisation. I understand how that looks like a great upsurge of the right wing grassroots. But I am less convinced. What marks the tea party gang, it looks like to me, is a disaffection of the mass with the political process.
Is that so different from the anti-war protests at the end of Bush's presidency?
The mass of people have focussed on what the president identified as his main goals - the Iraq war for Bush; healthcare and the bailout for Obama. These, the priorities of the political elite, prove to be the faultlines of disaffection for the inchoate mass.
The core of this movement is less the political mobilisation of grassroots, more the expression of popular disaffection with the political process.