1930s Trends That Deserve a Comeback More Than Literal Nazis

A listicle I really wish I didn’t have to write

I get it, retro is hip. And the 1930s were a glamorous time when jazz was hot, and everyone wore cool hats. But some things should best be left in the past, so let me be the one to say it: the current Nazi comeback is “serving cunt” in an entirely “sus” way. (Sorry, the anti-semitism stings less when I couch it in “squawk,” which is Gen Z slang for “Gen Z slang.”)¹

Sadly, between Elon’s salute seen ‘round the world and Kanye peddling a swastika t-shirt during the Super Bowl, we can (un)safely say Nazis are back. It doesn’t have to be this way. The 1930s were full of other interesting things: the Lindy Hop, Betty Boop, people listening to the radio in a social context! If we’re going to revive anything from the Nazi era, here are some things that would be better choices than actual Nazis.

Art Deco Architecture

Nowadays, every building looks like a terrarium fucked a shipping container. Let’s put a little whimsy into our lives and bring back the Art Deco movement, with its dazzling shapes, gold accents, and real estate moguls who were crazy in a fun way. These guys weren’t afraid of a little color, which is more than I can say for Trump’s America.

Shorter Movies

The average run time for a movie in the 1930s was a respectable 90 minutes. Meanwhile, The Brutalist—this year’s Golden Globe Winner for Best Picture—clocks in at 3 hours and 35 minutes! That’s the same length as a flight from Los Angeles to Vancouver, including taxiing. If they released it as a VHS set, there wouldn’t be a rubber band in the world big enough to hold those puppies together!

That said, I come from a long line of “this could be shorter” folks. On Passover, rather than reading the full text of the Haggadah that accompanies the seder, we prefer a 3-page abridged PDF. We get the point and ooooh baby the brisket stays HOT!

Board Games

The iconic board game Monopoly was popularized in the 1930s. Though initially introduced as a way to show how bad monopolies are, the game evolved into a fun way to lose friends and ruin your family. Monopolies are already bleeding us dry here in 2025; let’s at least do it old school, face-to-face, railroad-against-railroad. Look me in the eye while I suck from your capitalist teat, Bezos!

Plus, board games build character. We played a lot of Scrabble in my house growing up, and my parents used to pay my sister and I a dollar for every point we won by. If that financial motivation makes me a Jewish stereotype, so be it. You know what else it made me? A good fucking speller.

Airplanes

As someone with a fear of flying, this is a big sacrifice. But at this point I would trade today’s modern amenities for one of the Leonardo DaVinci-ass contraptions they called an airplane back then. The way things are going with American aviation right now, these early aircraft may actually be safer—especially if the Supreme Court approves Trump’s Executive Order that replaces all cockpit controls with Diet Coke dispensers.

The Great Depression

Ok, hear me out! Most of us are already broke anyways. What if I told you you could still be broke and also not have Nazis. That’s right, we’re going pre-Nazi. Catch me posted up in a Hooverville, eating flambéd rat over a trash fire, listening to absolutely no one talk about Western birth rates.

I’d like to submit a formal request for that great depression, because the depression I have just sucks!

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More Politics from Chortle

1. Ok, I made squawk up. Unless… we like it?