the Weimar Republic (a democracy) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic] certainly never directly voted to make Hitler a dictator - they voted him in, and he used the mechanisms of the state against itself (and crisises, both real and imagined) to seize power completely and become the official Dictator (Fuhrer means ‘leader’ in German). Here is a write up [https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/germany-...].
When the USSR collapsed, there was a temporary fledging democracy that started to form - that was then hijacked by Putin and twisted to support his now obvious Dictatorship.
In the US, while one can certainly argue ‘they knew what they were voting for’, the Trump voters I knew vehemently denied what is now the obvious plan re: economic policies, starting new wars/crises, etc. that are now the norm.
The current actual behavior of the US gov’t seems to align quite well with historical norms on this front, and continue to escalate. If ‘the people give them the power’ means ‘it’s legal’ (aka it is within a law the people’s agents have voted on and made official), or was voted on by the people, it’s clear the vast majority of high profile behavior of the gov’t lately doesn’t care about it.
If anything, Democracies seem to be inherently ‘dumb’ when it comes to these types of situations.
The idea that democracy either created hitler or wasn't able to stop his rise via democratic action at all is often spruiked in anarchist communist circles, while it's true hitler wasn't voted in the literal sense, neither is Australia's Prime Minister. That doesn't make the PM undemocratic, it's just its own democractic institution inside the party. There's actually nothing in the Australian consitution about PMs.
It doesn't mean you couldn't unelect the party democratically and thus the leader. The public can unelect them from power by voting out the Nazi party of which Hitler was leader (through again, a vote). So this is a case of what I'm saying actually being relevent – if people voted against the nazi party, hitler would not have risen to power. He only gained that power because the democratic institutions, the people let him. This is a case for more and better democracy, of valuing that institution. I've encountered Trump voters who were actually bernie bros and accelerationists - they voted for trump as a fu to the establishment. I think the have a moral responsibility to not vote on those urges and whims. I think this that's bad, even if I can feel the sentiment sometimes, and I think that sort of "democracy bad" is actually a harmful to discourse and simply not true.
We need to bolster democracy for the people, not call it toothless while invoking communism and fascism. I don't ultimately blame Trump for his rise to power, I blame the people for being fickle and perfectionists. Democracy is precarious and precious, not a perfect ultimate catch all. The people need to foster it otherwise the rising tide of populism and fascism will drown it.
It would be a lot clearer to everyone if you said what you think.
I don't think it's extreme to believe that democracy is the best tool to fight authoritarianism. That's why people like Trump deride democratic institutions and those important to it's function.
You asked for examples where democracies degraded to authoritarianism. I provided 3 recent ones, and yes the US is clearly currently in an authoritarian gov’t.
Your response is to… assert they didn’t happen, and to do nothing different? While being completely unsure of what I’m saying when it sure seems pretty clear?
You've not understood what I said at all. I didn't ask for examples, I asked what you thought I was missing. Turns out I wasn't missing these things at all, we just disagree on the lessons learned there within. Fair enough, we can disagree, but to say I am denying it happened and not to do any different when my entire point was that we need to be MORE democratic, not less – by valuing democracy and not allowing people to tear it down, exactly what I am trying to do now.
Democratic institutions only have as much power as they're given.
Italy transitioned from a regency into democracy - which the fascists used to seize power and form a dictatorship [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism].
When the USSR collapsed, there was a temporary fledging democracy that started to form - that was then hijacked by Putin and twisted to support his now obvious Dictatorship.
In the US, while one can certainly argue ‘they knew what they were voting for’, the Trump voters I knew vehemently denied what is now the obvious plan re: economic policies, starting new wars/crises, etc. that are now the norm.
The current actual behavior of the US gov’t seems to align quite well with historical norms on this front, and continue to escalate. If ‘the people give them the power’ means ‘it’s legal’ (aka it is within a law the people’s agents have voted on and made official), or was voted on by the people, it’s clear the vast majority of high profile behavior of the gov’t lately doesn’t care about it.
If anything, Democracies seem to be inherently ‘dumb’ when it comes to these types of situations.