The inspirational outline for the January 6th invasion was written almost a century ago:

[DFW]

"We enter the [seat of government building] to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free [transportation] and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we."

--Josef Göbbels, January 9, 1928

[Wounded Bear]

1. Many authoritarians entered office legally, including Hitler...

[DFW]

2. Indeed.

Before he became Führer, he became Reichskanzler (Chancellor), albeit via a minority vote (remind anybody of something?).

This was one of the reasons the present-day Federal Republic has a rule that a party needs to have at least 5% of the vote to be represented in a government, whether federal, state or local. The Weimarer Republik failed because its Reichtag was filled with one or two representatives of large numbers of fringe parties. This diluted the chance of a majority, or majority coalition to the point that Hitler was able to become chancellor with 43% of the vote. Today, a party can become the dominant party in a government, but only in coalition with a partner to make up 50% of the parliament. The partner will (it is hoped) temper any plans of any one party to steamroll over the rest, although it has turned out that the minority party can also hinder a major party's intent of true reform or progress just as easily (picture a small party represented in the Senate by Manchin and Sinema, for example, that coalesces with the Democrats).