It's a myth if you insist that the definition of "democratically elected" requires a clear majority of the vote. If a plurality suffices, it is not a myth. In my opinion 44% of the vote, more than the three next biggest combined, is close enough to say Hitler was democratically elected.Rum wrote:A bit of a myth this.DRSB wrote:This does not invalidate my point.Svartalf wrote:Which is great when you see how the sheeple are still voting for a strongman dictator like Vlad Vladimirovich
By the way, wasn't Hitler democratically elected too?
According to Frederic Grunfeld Hitler said he would use democracy to destroy it. Apart from Grunfeld's The Hitler File: A Social History of Germany and the Nazis, 1918-45 I have seen no other source of Hitler saying that, so I am a bit dubious about the quote's veracity, but it does not matter. Germany fell into the NSDAP's, and therefore Hitler's hands because the democratic system made it possible.
On the 5th of March 1933, the day of the Weimar Republic's last free popular election, the NSDAP gained a plurality of parliamentary seats, (44% of the popular vote, 288 of the 647 seats - 36 short of a majority). Amending the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) 19 days later to give Hitler plenary powers was easy because the NSDAP only needed 36 votes from the several splinter groups still sitting in parliament to give it the majority of votes needed to push it through. At the next election, on the 12th November 1933, only one party fielded candidates. It won 661 out of a possible 661 seats.
That, by the way, is what unconditional tolerance can lead to.
- If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. - K. R. Popper
