Weimar republic 2.0? Don’t make me laugh.

The Weimar Republic—that plucky little democratic experiment that popped up in Germany after the Kaiser buggered off and everyone else was too busy starving to argue. It’s become the go-do historical analogy for every hand-wringer who thinks the rise of the far-right in Europe or the occasional American political tantrum means we’re all doomed to replay the 1930s. But let’s be real: history doesn’t repeat itself. At best, it drunkenly stumbles into the same pub, orders the same drink, and then vomits on the carpet in a slightly different pattern.

The Weimar Constitution was, on paper, a masterpiece of progressive idealism—universal suffrage, civil liberties, checks and balances. Lovely. Shame about the crippling war reparations, the hyperinflation that made banknotes better suited for wallpaper than currency, and the Great Depression, which hit Germany like a sledgehammer to a soufflé. By the time the economy collapsed, the only people still defending democracy were the ones too stubborn (or naive) to realise the game was already over.

Fast-forward to today, and the parallels are… selective, at best. Yes, we’ve got rising far-right movements, economic instability, and politicians who’d sell their grandmothers for a shot at power. But Weimar’s downfall wasn’t just about extremists—it was about a system so brittle that the slightest pressure made it implode. Modern Europe? Not quite there yet. Our democracies are less “fragile glass vase” and more “plastic lawn chair”—ugly, uncomfortable, but weirdly resilient.

That said, let’s not get complacent. The real lesson from Weimar isn’t that “democracy always fails”, but that it fails when nobody can be arsed to defend it. When people are skint, scared, and sick of being told to tighten their belts while the rich get richer, they’ll listen to anyone who promises to burn the whole thing down. And right now? There’s no shortage of arsonists offering matches.

So no, we’re not in Weimar 2.0. But if we keep letting inequality fester, letting corporations loot the state, and letting politicians scapegoat the vulnerable, we might just end up with something even worse. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme—and right now, it’s sounding suspiciously like a funeral march.