The 1920s and the 2020s: Similarities and Differences

 As some of you may remember, in his 2020 Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, Joe Biden stated that “hope and history rhyme,” words quoted from the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Biden drew parallels between the 2020s and the 1920s by highlighting similarities in political, social, and economic contexts. 

The 1920s were often called the Roaring Twenties. That term indicates that that decade was characterized by significant economic prosperity, rapid social and cultural change, and exuberant optimism following the tragic years of World War I.

The slogan "Return to Normalcy" was used by Warren G. Harding during his successful 1920 presidential campaign. He ran on that theme, appealing to the widespread public desire for stability and a return to pre-World War I conditions after a decade marked by upheaval, including the war, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and other serious issues.

The economy boomed in the 1920s. People in the U.S. used installment plans to spend liberally on consumer products. They also poured money into speculative new investments, such as automobile and telephone stocks. The prevailing interest rate was around 5%, a low rate that encouraged “gambling” in the stock market.

In a November 7 essay in The New York Times, William Birdthistle wrote that the “influx of buying from 1919 to 1929 drove the stock market up more than six-fold over the decade.”** But we know how that ended in October 1929. The stock market collapsed, triggering the Great Depression.

As Birdthistle pointed out, "Between 1929 and 1932, the stock market dropped 77 percent, and the global economy staggered into the Great Depression while unemployment and malnutrition spiked. In 1932, suicide rates soared to their highest in recorded history.”

Is that a harbinger of what might happen before the end of this decade?

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (1925) was written to portray the 1920s as a time of decadence, materialism, and moral bankruptcy.

According to what I learned from AI, “The novel critically depicts the era’s opulence and empty pursuit of wealth through its characters and their lifestyles. Gatsby’s lavish parties symbolize the era’s excess, but beneath the surface lies a loss of authentic human connection.”** Does that remind you of a man you read/hear about in the news daily?

You probably heard something about the 47^th POTUS’s lavish Halloween party last month. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote on November 4, it was “a party complete with sequined, feathered dancers and, yes, a scantily-clad woman in a giant martini glass.”

That party, held just hours before 42 million Americans were about to lose federal food assistance, was, in Krugman’s words, “grotesque” and “unspeakably vulgar.” The vapidity of that evening might well be referred to as a Holloween, rather than a Halloween, party.

The 1920s was also the time of Eugene Debs, the energetic socialist leader paralleled in significant ways by Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City and a dynamic, young trailblazer for progressive Democrats in the 2020s.

In her November 5^th “letter,” Heather Cox Richardson wrote how Mamdani began his victory speech the night before with a nod to Debs, the Socialist candidate for president in 1920. He said, “The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”**

A blog article I posted in March 2015 was titled “Christians for Socialism” (see here). I wrote briefly about Debs there, so I know there are many differences between Mamdani and Debs, who was 65 years old in 1920 when he was the Socialist candidate for president even though he had been imprisoned in 1919 because of his opposition to WWI.

I also know that Mamdani is a Muslim and not a Christian, although I personally know several Christians who are happy that Mamdani was elected mayor of New York last week.

The best hope for most U.S. citizens in the 2020s lies partially in the hands of politicians such as Mamdani—and Bernie Sanders, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and other like-minded democratic socialist leaders.

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*¹ William A. Birdthistle, “Trump Is Bringing Back the Roaring Twenties. The Hangover Could Be Brutal.” The author served from 2021 to 2024 as director of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

*² This is from Perplexity AI, which I am now using more than Claude. It is linked to the web browser called Comet, which I am also using regularly now. – Regarding The Great Gatsby, I tried to read it for what I call my “recreational reading,” but I found it quite unenjoyable and quit reading it about halfway through. June read it just before her book study group discussed it last month, and I have learned more about it from her.

*³ I heartily recommend clicking on the following link and reading Richardson’s Substack post (found here:https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-5-2025. In contrast, on November 8, The Washington Post’s editorial board posted a very negative opinion piece about Mamdani. One wonders how much that is related to the owner of the WaPo being Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is said to be over $215 billion.