You never can tell. Anarchists, communists and Ku Klux Klansmen were able to recruit many thousands of new members at that time; hard times breed class envy, racism and other beliefs promoting violence and hatred. Hunger is a great motivator, but what may have been even worse to endure was the widespread unemployment. In our culture people derive their sense of self from their occupation, and those without jobs may have felt stripped of their very identity. Middle class Americans forced by necessity to accept "vulgar" means of livelihood often felt humiliation, and frustration at having to compete economically with uneducated people. And at that time, an uncharitable attitude towards the poor was very common. Many prosperous people despised the poor, and the poor were encouraged to hate themselves, and to feel ashamed of their circumstances. Many desperate and struggling people, although they had worked hard to support their families all their lives, came to believe themselves failures, thinking that their poverty was their own fault, a punishment for imagined sins.
At that time the idea that government was supposed to provide "relief" to low-income Americans was still controversial. Many felt that churches and other charities should be the ones to fill that role. And I'm sorry to say, even many ecclesiastics and so-called benefactors of the poor, while they did offer help, also ranted and moralized at the humble people they supposedly served, scolding them for drunkenness, wastefulness and sloth, which they said were the causes of poverty. They spoke of unemployed people as being "shiftless", remaining idle by choice.
George Orwell said it was a funny thing, how people take it for granted that they have a right to harague and pray over you, once your income falls below a certain level.
Anyway, I was just trying to say, when you break people down to the point where they have nothing left of their own to cling to, nothing to rely on, it's easier to brainwash them into believing in simplistic solutions and ideas, merely by indoctrinating them as you restore their destroyed ego and self-image. Millions of desperate people were ready for conversion.
I imagine America could easily have fallen to totalitarianism, which might have caused rebellion and the breakup of the Union. Actually, when I think about it, it's a wonder it didn't happen.
Somehow, President Roosevelt brought the nation back from the brink. He was a fantastic communicator, and was able to persuade the poor to reject rage and hatred. He restored the faith they had once had in democracy and capitalism. And he convinced even the propertied classes that America was in peril, that unchecked greed had ruined everyone else's standard of living, and that unless they accepted his reforms our nation would collapse.