It’s not feasible for everyone to learn and be able to recall the whole of human history, just for us to be able to explain why certain policies or actions are incorrect. Consequently, we have to argue in a way that people correctly can be convinced, using only a subset of the history. In the policy case, where individuals’ experience isn’t broad enough to provide us meaningful anchors for reference, we have to employ both empirical/historical type and principle-type arguments. The historical argument constructively demonstrates probability, while the principle argument allows to generalize our very narrow, particular assertion to cover the range of situations which we are discussing.
Hence we wish to find the minimum subset of history and principles, that are roughly consistent with what we as scholars infer from a much larger body of knowledge and induction. Here’s a start:
Threat: Adolf Hitler And German National Socialism
Exploited: Constitutional weaknesses and intrigues to gain ultimate power. Hitler gained the Reichschancellorship through a failed scheme by the elites to marginalize him, which provoked his nomination to the position through a constitutional backdoor.
Demonstrated: Military and economic success in the short term are not predictive of future success; liberal government is still essential to avoiding mistakes. The NSDAP had many successes in their first few years in power. By the time the Soviets and Nazis negotiated the partition of Poland, Hitler and the NSDAP were politically invincible; they had delivered on many of their largest promises. That didn’t prevent them from miscalculating that they could prevail in the conflicts they started by attacking Poland, nor did it prevent them from implementing campaigns of mass murder.
Also demonstrated a fast-action to destroy the republic; within three months, the laws of the Weimar republic had been overturned.
Would Have Been Countered By (non-violent): Weimar Republic democracy. Weimar elections typically had 80% turnout, and the NSDAP’s roughly free and fair election support crested at 37%, falling back to 31%. A well structured majority election system (others are possible) with enforced bill of rights would have prevented the NSDAP from taking complete control of the government.
Threat: Hugo Chavez, The Chavistas That Followed Him, And The Bolivarian Revolution Of The 21st Century
Exploited: Class differences and continued poverty, coming to power through free elections. For a decade, they maintained a great deal of popular support and repelled military coup attempts.
Demonstrated: Poor economic fundamentals and corruption alone can destroy your country. Majority rule doesn’t always get an acceptable government. While the oil flowed, Venezuelans enjoyed some measure of prosperity from the BR policies, which required that cash income for implementation. However, once oil prices dropped, the government began to run massive deficits, and the corruption and mismanagement that had been allowed to continue under the Chavista leaders aggravated the problems. This, along with a series of canonically poor economic reactions including inflating the currency, caused the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, despite the years of oil wealth, the available farmland, the hydropower resources, and in general a level of civilization that should be able to overcome such challenges.
Would Have Been Countered By (non-violent): Unclear, but perhaps a more aggressive scheme of public subsidies. It might well have been the case that only violence could have prevented the ultimate outcome once the Chavistas had reached a certain point.