NDI is careful to stress that democracy requires far more than choosing a leader via the ballot box. That is essential but never enough. No error is more common than to assume that the winner of an election has license to do whatever he or she may want. In a true democracy, leaders respect the will of the majority but also the rights of the minority—one without the other is not enough. This means that constitutional protections for the individual must be defended, even when those protections become inconvenient to the party on top. Years before taking office, Hitler told his fellow Nazis, “The
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