Human society is limited in the antidotes to human nature that it can code through law, institutions or culture. It’s the same species throughout 1930’s Germany and today.

We shouldn’t give up on law, institutions or culture, but accepting our failings instead of seeing humans as a perfectible project can at least give us solace in confusing times.

Sorry, but Germany had just suffered a humiliating defeat and was punished severely for WWI in which all sides were equally guilty for all of it.

When did something of this magnitude just happen in the USA?

P.S.: This does not excuse Germany's actions wrt. WWII but it does help to explain.

Just an opinion, but -

An entire cohort born between 1985~1995 reached their 30s in what they perceived as a far, far worse situation all around (financially foremost, but also almost every social aspect) than their parents.

For many reasons (including the ones above) it's difficult for any institution within reach of the US government to analyze how the alt-right took power but from what I can tell the US economy is in a slow burn. It's been receiving patches roughly once a presidency but it turns out you can't combine a lot of short term solutions to make a long term one. Fixing the economy would require bold decisions and the parties took two different directions. The Republican party realized that any bold policy would get votes regardless of any other factor including coherency. This is why Trump supporters, when asked about their logic usually give some form of "things are bad, and they didn't used to be".

To summarize, there are competing ideas for what got us here, but I think it was less of a real inciting event like WW1 and more of a breaking point that was eventually reached.

> WWI in which all sides were equally guilty for all of it.

Not true, while Germany was not solely responsible, it and Austria-Hungary were much more responsible than others.