In Bed With The Right Episode 110 -- Project 1933, Part IX: November 1 - November 30
Dec 2, 2025
Exploring the chilling machinations of November 1933, the hosts unpack the oddity of elections under a dictatorship. They discuss how the Nazi regime turned voting into a spectacle designed to erase genuine choice. Personal accounts, like Victor Klemperer’s diary, reveal the humiliation and subtle resistance of individuals. Delving into propaganda tactics and youth mobilization, they highlight the regime's manipulation of civil society. The episode also touches on exiled intellectuals grappling with their responses to Nazism and the challenge of reckoning with the past.
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Elections As Ritualized Legitimacy
- The November 1933 election was ritualized rather than competitive, serving to legitimize an already-established dictatorship.
- Adrian Daub argues authoritarian elections preserve form but remove democratic function to manufacture consent.
Blocking Electoral Reconstitution Of Opposition
- Nazis feared reconstitution of opposition through elections and tightly suppressed alternatives.
- Daub explains they engineered the ballot to prevent elites or groups from using elections as leverage.
Plebiscite Paired To An Issue With Real Support
- Hitler paired the Reichstag vote with a plebiscite to ratify his withdrawal from the League of Nations.
- The plebiscite exploited broad genuine support on that issue to manufacture popular legitimacy.