4 ms·

I don't think you understand how parliamentary elections worked and how governments were formed in the Weimar Republic. A critical amount of people voted for t

by _ak 12y ago

I don't think you understand how parliamentary elections worked and how governments were formed in the Weimar Republic. A critical amount of people voted for the candidates of the NSDAP (33.1% of all votes, the relative majority of the last 1932 election), who in turn formed a coalition, with Hitler als Chancellor. Formally, the president appoints the government and the chancellor, and the party resp. coalition of parties with an absolute majority of seats in parliament is who is normally appointed (and I think there is a certain legal obligation, but I'm not 100% sure on that). The current German political system is in fact very similar to the one of the Weimar Republic (with details like certain thresholds to prevent dozens of tiny parties). Claiming Hitler was never elected is like claiming Angela Merkel was never elected.

logfromblammo 12y ago
Correct. Angela Merkel was never elected as Chancellor. The Chancellorship is not an elected office in Germany. US President Obama was not elected, either. He was appointed by majority vote of the Electoral College. This is a hair-splitting, technical, de jure distinction, obviously, but denying that it exists is pretending that the republic is more democratic than it is in fact. An election is a popular vote. A parliamentary or republican representative vote is not an election, regardless of how much it may superficially resemble one.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  > US President Obama was not elected, either. He was appointed by majority vote of the Electoral College. Except in the U.S., electors are required to vote for the candidate that won the majority of the popular vote in their state. They're honorary officials and rarely have any autonomy, though that is governed by state laws, not national laws. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/e...
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    Following your link, 24 states have no law restricting their presidential electors. They vote as directed, as in the other states, because voting against your party is social suicide. The process resembles an election because that resemblance serves the purposes of the political duopoly in the U.S. It has always been a kludge, working around the nominal autonomy of the states within the federation. The facts are still the definition of the word "election" and the contents of the national constitutions. There is no amount of rhetorical gymnastics that you can perform to make "Hitler was elected" anything other than a provably false statement. It doesn't matter. Clearly, there is no specific requirement that a democratic society has to pick its leadership in free and fair elections, nor do elections prevent jerkasses from becoming dictators.

by _ak 12y ago

logfromblammo 12y ago

Correct. Angela Merkel was never elected as Chancellor. The Chancellorship is not an elected office in Germany. US President Obama was not elected, either. He was appointed by majority vote of the Electoral College. This is a hair-splitting, technical, de jure distinction, obviously, but denying that it exists is pretending that the republic is more democratic than it is in fact. An election is a popular vote. A parliamentary or republican representative vote is not an election, regardless of how much it may superficially resemble one.

humanrebar 12y ago
> US President Obama was not elected, either. He was appointed by majority vote of the Electoral College. Except in the U.S., electors are required to vote for the candidate that won the majority of the popular vote in their state. They're honorary officials and rarely have any autonomy, though that is governed by state laws, not national laws. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/e...
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  Following your link, 24 states have no law restricting their presidential electors. They vote as directed, as in the other states, because voting against your party is social suicide. The process resembles an election because that resemblance serves the purposes of the political duopoly in the U.S. It has always been a kludge, working around the nominal autonomy of the states within the federation. The facts are still the definition of the word "election" and the contents of the national constitutions. There is no amount of rhetorical gymnastics that you can perform to make "Hitler was elected" anything other than a provably false statement. It doesn't matter. Clearly, there is no specific requirement that a democratic society has to pick its leadership in free and fair elections, nor do elections prevent jerkasses from becoming dictators.