The Extreme Right's Exploitation of Democracy

This is about the right's use of democracy to undermine it. It is from an essay about the Supreme court's failure to curb the extreme right in Israel. But it might as well apply here.

The attorney general is justifying his failures [to curb Jewish extremists] by the need to respect freedom of expression and protest. In this he is showing that he has not learned the most critical lesson of all - that of the Weimar Republic's collapse. The Supreme Court based its arguments on this lesson when it recognized, about 40 years ago, the principle of "democracy that defends itself." The justices, who at that time were nearly all graduates of the splendid Weimar educational institutions, had seen with their own eyes how democracy in Germany sputtered out because it allowed its enemies the right to exploit it in order to eliminate its authority. "What characterized this process perhaps more than anything else," warned Justice Alfred Witkon, "was that the subversive forces exploited to their own ends all of the human rights ... [including] the freedom of expression [and demonstration] .... The authorities stood aside ... lest they be accused of violating those rights that served the enemies of democracy as cover and refuge for their activity."