“History doesn’t repeat itself,” Mark Twain quipped, “but it often rhymes.” No two eras are the same, but analogous circumstances can produce comparable results. Conditions in contemporary America bear a disturbing resemblance to those in Weimar, Germany, and have evoked a disturbingly familiar response from a sizeable segment of the population. A pervasive climate of fear characterized both eras. The Great Depression hit Germany so hard that by 1932, 30 percent of its workforce was unemployed. While the U.S. has not experienced that kind of shock, the COVID pandemic, inflation, rising prices and irrational fear of growing diversity have contributed...