Highway to Hitler [pdf]

I've heard this called "weaponized Keynesianism." The use of Keynesian here is somewhat off-base since this is nothing like what Keynes advocated, so a better term would be "politically weaponized stimulus."

In its strongest conspiratorial form it would consist of backing austerity policies until one's party or figurehead wins power, and then abruptly going spending happy. This creates the illusion of a sudden dramatic turnaround in the economy. The more opportunistic form would be to take power in a severely demand constrained economy and then go all-in on stimulus on a massive scale while being sure to claim credit for oneself or one's party rather than for the specific policy of stimulus (which is easy and any party could do).

AFIAK both the Nazis and the Soviets did this, among others, and perma-stimulus is also how the Chinese Communist Party has held onto power.

We are in a severely demand-constrained economy, so we certainly have a golden opportunity for someone to work a miracle with the Federal checkbook and then claim credit and use it to solidify their power. A friend of mine has called this Weimar America, and I really hope he's wrong.