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sarchertechyesterday at 5:48 PM1 replyview on HN

There is no system that is immune to takeover from a demagogue. There's not even any hard evidence that any system is more resilient to it than the US is. It's all just tradeoffs.

Germany had 7 major political parties in the run up to 1933. In fact if you look at the history of dictatorships that took over democracies, having 2 to 3 stable institutionalized parties is actually protective. The other thing that appears to be protective is a history of peaceful transitions of power, which the US has the longest or second longest.


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BurningFrogyesterday at 6:50 PM

Germany only became a democracy under duress in 1919, and it never really settled into a stable democracy.

Under immense pressure from an impressive list of disasters during the 1920s, it reverted back to authoritarianism in 1933.

I don't think this teaches us much about the US

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