FionaK |
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| I think that in this part of the discussion we are trying to see what effect the particular form of democracy can have. It is not clear to me that any of the forms currently in existence affords protection from totalitarianism by itself.
It seems to me that all democratic parties are constrained by the fact that getting too far out of line with public opinion will lose them votes. That is a separate issue, I think, and will lead to consideration of how the general outlook (zeitgeist?) changes:that is deeply mysterious to me and I am hoping that others can shed some light
But meantime, you are correct that there are effectively only two parties in the UK and the US: neither has been apt to turn totalitarian in the medium term past, so far as I am aware. I am not sure what form of democracy was in place in Germany when that country famously did move from democratic to totalitarian government: and I think that is the best example we have of such a transition, because Italy was a relatively new state, and Spain fought a civil war to achieve the same end: whereas germany made the initial change through the ballot box. That might be wrong: I am not very versed in european history, and others will know better.
It is perfectly possible that all forms of democracy are equally good or equally bad at preventing totalitarian movements from taking hold: and that the form matters for other reasons while something else is more important to that particular goal.
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