I agree. It’s certainly possible to have a legitimate election which results in voting in an authoritarian ruler. The 2016 election is a perfect example of an attempt to elect an authoritarian in a legitimate election. My guess is many of the others noted above (Orban, Erdogan, etc.) all won their firs election legitimately. I’d classify the Brexit vote in the same category. A legitimate exercise of democracy with flawed goals. So far** (depending on what happens in Cochise County, AZ later today) we have yet to go authoritarian, even at a local level, but the danger remains.
ETA: There has been one case in US history that I can recall, that of Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears that he carried out in defiance of a SCOTUS decision, but no recent episodes that I can recall.
Fundamentally, democracy is hard, if done right. You have to go spend your own time and effort being aware of the issues and the candidates’/parties’ stances on them, and then knowing that, you have to make a choice. Multiple times- for each candidate in each race from President all the way down to some minor position like justice of the peace or dog catcher. And you have to do this more or less annually- you’ve got the biennial big federal and state elections, but you’ve also got local ones for mayor, city council, school board, superintendent, runoff elections, etc…
I can see people who aren’t whatever combination of motivated and educated might well prefer an authoritarian style of government. It probably doesn’t seem all that different to them than being bossed around by parents, teachers, work supervisors, etc… while democracy grants and requires a certain level of independence that may not be entirely comfortable.
Ah, wait … what we have here may be more as mentioned a question of words used. What we are really talking about here is Rechtsstaat, the “State of Rights” or State of Justice, what you earlier translated as Rule of Law (which is the most frequent translation but is not fully accurate due to English being the way it is).
“Democracy” by itself does not denote general justice and fairness — in its root it meant rule by the assembly of citizens of Athens which meant that most humans in the city got jack. Which is why we get the qualifier “liberal democracies” when referring to our Western “free world” states where we do expect there to be some fundamental justice and fairness.
Indeed, and at the risk of starting a hijack, I would say that this is what the OP’s question boils down to: a society must have enough common ground to be able to discuss the where, when and what and reach a consensus. Each society will reach another point where they agree, depending on their history, their fears, their culture, but reach it they must. Germany, for instance, does not allow to lie about the holocaust; the USA on the other hand, considers freedom of speach more important that truth. OK, I think we know why this is so. And that may be the difference between what the OP has called democracy (I prefer rule of law, as already stated) and authoritarianism. You cannot argue with fascists (or jihadists, or fundamentalists…), so consensus breaks down. But you can argue with democrats. Actually, that is what democracy is about: to have the better, the more convincing argument. Without recourse to violence. Autoritarianism does not mind resorting to violence.
In Germany the left* had two political guiding principles after WWII: 1. Nie wieder Krieg. (No to war!). 2. Nie wieder Faschismus (No to fascism!). After the events in Ucraine in February this year it has become aparent that both principles can be mutually exclusive, you have to choose. I personally choose the second: No to fascism! Never again! Even if it means war. It’s not what I want, but if it is the price to pay, it will have to be paid.
*In case it interests anyone, the German right had two guiding principles too: Atlanticism, that is, align with NATO, i.e. the USA. And Israel deserves total support, never mind how they treat the Palestinians.
Yes, I am indeed talking about Rechtsstaatlichkeit, and I translated that always as Estado de Derecho into Spanish and rule of law into English. I don’t know how to translate it better. As a professional interpreter who works for the EU (among other clients) I can attest that me and all my colleagues translate it that way. If you have any better ideas, I am all ears.
That is why I say my definition of rule of law includes respect for minorities, and that supersedes pure majority decisions, even if that clashes with your idea of democracy. Otherwise the majority could decide to kill or enslave the minority, and that cannot be it, can it?
I find it virtually impossible to get an exact match with English, where the same word “Law” is used for what in Romance languages are Lex/Ley and Jus/Derecho.
Rule of Law is the closest, but the rub is that there are those who twist it to say they support Rule of Law… as long as the law says they rule.
And that is why a faction of the US framers demanded a written Bill of Rights indicating what things could not be legislated away (while at the same time making sure the republic was not actually very democratic).
The problem with Democracy is the same as the problem with pacifism. It takes two sides to keep the peace, but only one to break it.
If one side in a governmental system makes it clear that they intend to produce an authoritarian system of government, then the other side pretty much has the choice of submitting, or making sure that their side gets to choose the dictator.
I’ve been reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and one thing is clear from this book: during the 1920s and 1930s, essentially no one with any power in Germany was actually interested in maintaining a functional democracy. The arguments were largely about who should get to choose the dictator. A majority of people actually opposed Hitler and the Nazis, but couldn’t find it in themselves to actually work together in the elections to keep them in check. They all wanted all the marbles for themselves.
Perhaps English should adopt the German word Rechtstaatlichkeit, like you have adopted Schadenfreude, to make that distiction clear. Of course it could be framed as quite a snub to the Oldest Democracy on Record* to use a German concept for such a fudamental idea, that may be hard to swallow. Bill-of-Right-ism does not sound very good.
*The Oldest Extant Democracy is not the USA, btw, it is Iceland. But that is really going off a tangent, so I will not insist into it anymore.
I’m going to push back against the OP. While he is correct that the world has largely aligned itself with authoritarian regimes on one side and Democracies on the other, I don’t think that it is being driven directly by that distinction. Intrinsically authoritarian regimes don’t have shared interests, if your goal as a dictator is to maximize your power, than another countries dictator who is also trying to maximize their power isn’t a natural ally it’s a natural rival. The only thing that unites them is a larger common rival.
Under the previous, cold war world order, the big distinction was left vs right, or first vs second world with the third world stuck in between. But in or around 1989, the good guys won and became the sole superpower. So now you have the US allied with a united Europe, who has no interest interest in direct military conquest as long as everyone plays nice and accepts the pecking order dictated by the free market. The only people left out of this arrangement are those who don’t want to play nice because it involves potential loss of power, namely the authoritarians. With the economic power houses all united the various rogue states are forced to stand together into a legion of doom against the free world super-friends.
So to a large extent it looks like two sides lined up Democracy vs Authoritarianism, but if you look closer there are some countries that don’t fit this mold, most particularly Saudi Arabia which is definitely an authoritarian regime but on the European/American team in terms of world politics. As to the Republicans support for Russia, I don’t think that its really we want to be dictators so we like other dictators, I think it is that Putin’s plan to disrupt the Western coalition is to encourage division and misinformation, which have found the most fertile soil on the far right. So since Putin supports them, they support Putin. But this support doesn’t necessarily extend to other authoritarian regimes, e.g. China or Iran.