A timely reminder on democracies dying

One reason that people from Hungary to Britain to the US can tell themselves "things aren't really that bad" when authoritarian movements and governments are destroying democracy is this (from Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Raphaële Chappe, The Supermanagerial Reich Los Angeles Review of Books 11/07/2016:

Popular culture is replete with cartoonish depictions of Nazism. Hitler seems to emerge suddenly, as if he had been waiting in the wings as a fait accompli. One moment it’s Weimar decadence, really good art, and Stormtroopers and communists fighting in the streets. The next, Hindenburg is handing Adolf the keys to the kingdom and it’s all torchlight parades, Triumph of the Will, and plaintive Itzhak Perlman violins. Hitler rises above a reborn Reich as a kind of totalitarian god. All aspects of life come under his control through the Nazi Party’s complete domination of German life. Of course, this is not really how it worked.