> If past history is anything to go by they will support "moderate and conservative" status quo politicians until the point where the people have given up on them and started seeking more radical change - from ever more extreme versions of the right and the left.
Could you point to some reading that would help one become educated on this past history?
Robert Paxton’s Anatomy of Facism (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/128540/the-anatomy-..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Paxton#Fascism for a 5 min overview) is a fairly compact historical overview of the rise of fascism in post-WWI Europe, and analyses the historical/cultural/material factors for why facists came to power in Italy and Germany but not in eg England. It are mostly focuses on the dynamic cited in the grandparent comment re:
> At that point the ultrawealthy will seek to form an alliance with the growing popularity of the far right and seek to annihilate the left.
This is the third stage of Paxton’s five stages, the first three being:
> 1. Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor
> 2. Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
> 3. Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite fascists to share power
> Could you point to some reading that would help one become educated on this past history?
You might want to look into the Weimar Republic (the period of the region what is approx known as Germany between WWI and WWII). I'd start with Wikipedia. Babylon Berlin is a (fiction) series about that period. I guess you meant a historic book reading though.
I'd suggest reading up on the rise the Bolsheviks in Russia and Mao in China if you want to have some context for what these people are talking about. The Great Courses offers some great lectures on both subjects.
If one really wants to summon the Bolsheviks to explain fascism, it might as well be trough the Bavarian Soviet Republic [0].
Because that's some regularly overlooked context to the rise of Hitler, with his brand of fascism focused on anti-Bolshevik/communist sentiments which neatly played into racial theories [1] and stereotypes [2] that were rather common back then.
I think the parent is most likely referring to the rise of the Nazi party in the Weimar Republic, specifically the eventual support of wealthy industrialists once they became a major political party after 1929 and the role of some of the same in that outcome in the first place. You could also include other conservative interests (Prussian aristocrats, monarchists, the Army, etc.), all of whom thought they could use and co-opt the Nazi Party for various aims without much difficulty. Papen was so confident that he and his conservative majority in the cabinet would be able to control Hitler as chancellor that he declared to worried associates that "within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak." Power would, or so the rationalizations went, calm Hitler and force him to become a more traditional politician.
That said, I'd caution against putting too much emphasis on the possible parallels, even as there's a lot to learn by looking at them. That initial bargain--or rather, series of bargains--was made under very unique circumstances that aren't really present today. Industrialists saw the threat of the Great Depression (both in terms of the destruction of their wealth through purely economic means as well as the political consequences of the depression) and the possible rise of a communist German state as existential threats to themselves and their society. Richard J. Evans' The Coming of The Third Reich touches on the sheer terror over the possibility of a communist revolution a bit and how it influenced Weimar politics, given the example of the Russian Revolution of 1917: it meant not only confiscation of property, but also torture and death on a massive scale. The failed revolution in Hungary, and the White Terror that followed it, also made it explicitly clear that even failed revolutions would have immense levels of political violence. Labor unions and political parties associated with them were easy to associate with this; it helps that they weren't exactly predisposed towards them in the first place for a variety of social and financial reasons. The Nazis capitalized on (and pushed) the fear of communist revolution, both with the public and traditional conservative interests. There was also a sort of normalization of the presence of paramilitary activities and violence in Weimar and their use by political parties; if one was so inclined, it was apparently possible at the time to rationalize the Nazis as just another populist movement that wouldn't translate into lasting political power, and could even be co-opted. You also had a lot of nostalgia for the Bismarckian past and a very unhealthy democracy in the Weimar Republic; as such there wasn't much interest in defending democracy, such as it was, by the end. It seems as if everyone figured it could be replaced with something "better" in their eyes.
As for the industrialists and the rise of the Nazi Party, I'd suggest Diarmuid Jeffreys's Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine. It's not focused solely on the role of the firm in the Nazi's rise to power, but it covers it as part of a broader look at the company's history and what it eventually led to. Adam Tooze's excellent The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy is somewhat related, with regards to the relationship between the Nazi Party and rearmament efforts and the Nazi process of Gleichschaltung, or coordination, through which the Nazis established control of "social, political, and cultural organizations...according to Nazi ideology and policy."[0] There are a few other books that might be of interest, but I can't think of them at the moment
Great comment! A book I've (almost) finished recently that seems to generally fit your narrative is "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer.
I can't speak for its accuracy, but as a sidenote I found it fascinating and somewhat painful to read how the writer deals with homosexuality (quite negative). I suppose in its time this was a common enough sentiment, but it was still rather jarring.
You should start with the history of the Weimar Republic, as the parent indicated, and it’s slide into Nazism. Fascism is more multifaceted than this specific manifestation, but its circumstance most parallel our own age.
Could you point to some reading that would help one become educated on this past history?