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The Weimar republic had a pretty hefty Achilles Heel built into its democracy: because Bismarck didn't necessarily trust the will of the people completely, the
by shadowgovt 4y ago
The Weimar republic had a pretty hefty Achilles Heel built into its democracy: because Bismarck didn't necessarily trust the will of the people completely, the government he structured ended up giving Chancellor far more power than, in hindsight, was correct to preserve a democratic system.
The system basically had an "In case of populism, break glass" feature built in and the nazis figured out how to pick up the hammer. Not to imply they didn't enjoy some popular support from the German people prior, but once they had Hitler clicked in and able to dissolve the Reichstag, that support was irrelevant.
- chrisco255 4y agoTraditionally speaking though, this "in case of populism, enshrine an emperor/king/caesar/dictator" has always been true. The Romans experienced this with Julius. The French relapsed several times after their 1789 Revolution and dawdled between democracy and Napoleonic imperialism and dynastic monarchy. The British, too, have a colorful history of monarchs vs Parliament. And to this day refuse to sweep away the institution altogether for some indescribable reason, perhaps as a fallback in case this whole democracy thing doesn't work out. The U.S. isn't an old nation, but it's the oldest continuous democracy. It was meticulously designed to avoid such issues, but I wouldn't say it's immune either.