Populism & Democratic Backsliding

In 1932, the Nazi Party won 37 percent of the vote in Germany's free elections. Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor through constitutional procedures. The Reichstag voted to grant him emergency powers. A democracy voted itself out of existence.

This was not a coup in the traditional sense. No tanks rolled through Berlin on January 30, 1933. The institutions functioned. The ballots were counted. The laws were followed. And yet the result was the destruction of the very system that made the process possible.

The German case is extreme, but the underlying dynamic is not unique. Democracies can be dismantled by people who win elections. The threat does not always arrive in military uniforms. Sometimes it arrives in a suit, waving a ballot, claiming to speak for the people.