[Sevrene]

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.

[lazide]

Huh? Do you even listen to yourself?

[Sevrene]

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.

[lazide]

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?

[Sevrene]

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.

[lazide]

What democratic institutions do you think don’t have the power to deal with the current (or those past) situations? I’m not seeing any.

[Sevrene]

I return to you "Have you not been paying attention?"

Trump didn't rise to power because of democracy, it was in spite of it, Trump literally tried to overturn the election results and still subverts the people's choice by continuing to spread that lie. He talks of jailing his opponents, plays dirty, doesn't respect the rules or democratic institutions. He is the antithesis of democracy and the people (using democracy) voted him in. The people failed themselves and their own people but they did so not as first order goals.

Spartacist uprising, mensheviks vs bolsheviks, etc- people didn't turn away from democracy because democracy itself failed them, they turned away from democracy because they had some idealist world they wanted to get to– by force (i.e not democratic). This is what motivated communist uprises and hitler's brownshirts to subvert the election. Note that this says nothing as to whether they are correct or not in their worldview. Hitler shares this type of thinking and he took advantage of it – just like Trump destroys the media "fake news" or makes voting harder, if we, the people, didn't allow it, we would prevent it one way or another. The problem with Trump or Hitler isn't that they're "too democratic", it's that they subverted the process debasing it in turn.

There is power in the collectve. Unions got this via bloodshed so that they need not bleed more. If we devalue unions because some unions are bad we just live in a world in which capital get to rule and bloodshed returns. It's a regression. It's not the right strategy, we need to work together despite our differences in solidarity despite the fact democracy sometimes leads to imperfect outcomes, all in order to prevent dictators, ensuring they govern with mandate and consent, not authoritarian force.

It's not one single institution like "Congress". Democracy isn't just voting it requires free and fair elections which require free and fair political discourse which requires transparency, and mass media that informs doesn't distorts, etc. If we don't value these the next step isn't voting on it democratically, it's violence to enforce totalitarianism. In some ways, we're already there. Lets not inadvertently enable it.