Whose old narrative is that? Versailles never cause economic collaspe, what it did cause was a nationalist backlash against the Center/Left coalition running Germany under Weimar Constitution. Even the hyper inflation was not caused by Versaille directly,it was a result of actions taken by the German government because of the occupation of the Rheinland. But, Germany recovered fromthe hyper inflation years before the Depression swept in.
And Obama's policies are the reason job growth is lagging
Tariffs were populist measures? Maybe Smoot Hawley was, but not traditionally, and Progressives did replace them with an income tax because populists hated the tariffs which they saw as making goods more expensive to make the wealthy wealthier.
Were they effective? Well, behind a high tariff regime we had a little thing called the Industrial Revolution, not that I am supporting them today, I just posted for debate