Until very recently comparing contemporary events in the West with the 1920s was little more than a joke that one could make but gradually bit by bit some key indicators are becoming comparable. The first most obvious sign is the reluctance by leaders of one or more major parties to recognise democratic outcomes as being legitimate. The second sign is the increasing activism of armed militia associated with political parties. The third is the socio-economic environment. All three, at least in the case of the USA, are showing uncomfortable signs of mirroring what happened in 1920s Europe. So far the similarities seem to go only so far, but the danger is the direction of travel, and the likelihood that background economic conditions will worsen in the coming years.
The first point is the refusal to recognise the legitimacy of elections by the defeated candidate Donald Trump. The danger now is that anyone who does recognise as legitimate elections won by Democrats are going to be purged from the party. Those Republicans willing to recognise a future Democratic Presidential victory may simply be forced out of office. In addition to this is the tendency towards Republicans refusing to certify elections that have been won by their opponents. For instance in Pennsylvania Republicans were very reluctant to certify Biden's victory (he won by 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania), and are now refusing to certify an otherwise elected State Senator. Will Republicans adopt this strategy in the 2024 Presidential elections, but more thoroughly next time?
The second point is the growth of armed militias. In the 1920s there were the blackshirts in Italy, the falangists in Spain and the brownshirts in Germany. True, they faced militant factions from the left (until they were crushed by dictatorship), but in the USA there is also rising militancy from the left. In the US interventions by armed 'Trumpist' militia are, as we all now know, becoming more significant. In the 1920s the far right militias had sympathisers in the police, and it seems there is no shortage of sympathy for Trump amongst the US police.
The third point are deteriorating circumstances for lower middle classes and increasing inequalities of income. Whenever we emerge from the current coronavirus crisis there will be a debt laden public and private sector. With this is likely to come rising inflation that cannot be tamed by increases in interest rates because of the effect on householders and businesses.
Of course there are various dissimilarities. Niall Ferguson has talked about some of these, though as he recongises, in the shadow of recent events the extent of the dissimilarities have narrowed. As one Guardian columnist has recorded, Hitler's putsch in 1923 may have been unsuccessful, but he was all too successful a decade later. Will history record the storming of the Capitol Hill as a turning point? Quite probably - but maybe in the wrong direction as far as US democracy is concerned. It could even lead to a much wider civil conflict involving, ultimately, the military. The left tends not to do well out of these conflicts in modern capitalist states. If the elite fear being controlled by neo-fascist tendencies, they tend to settle for charismatic strongmen who rule an attenuated democracy, or not all. This can range at best from a limited democracy as in Orban's Hungary to outright dictatorship as in Dolfuss in Austria in the 1930s.
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