No, Trump can't make himself a dictator like Hitler - because of the US Constitution's clear separation of powers - it doesn't have anything resembling the monarchist inspired article 48 loophole
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This is to help anyone scared by social media posts like this one on reddit. Typically they mention a few similarities they find between Trump and Hitler and then claim FALSELY that it means Trump also can become a Hitler.
Trump is nothing like Hitler. The US Constitution is very robust, the only way that Hitler came to power was the very weak Weimar constitution and that's the same reason Putin has so much power - the very weak Russian constitution.
Hitler was able to become a dictator so easily because the German Weimar constitution was framed by monarchists who didn't trust a parliament to make laws. So they allowed the president to override the parliament in an emergency. Hitler exploited that to make himself a dictator.
This can’t happen in modern Germany, because it has a very strong constitution designed at many levels to prevent anything like Hitler or fascism ever happening again including secret police / Gestapo etc.
Putin could become dictator because the Russian Constitution is very easy to change and because it hasn’t got an independent judiciary and he can rig the elections to the extent that he can ensure that the Russian Duma or parliament, though it has some diversity, is never able to override any of his wishes when it comes to making laws. It’s not quite a single party state but close to it.
In this blog post I’ll go through why it can’t happen in the USA and how it happened in modern Russia and in Hitler’s Germany. Putin is no Hitler, but he has similar levels of power as a Russian dictator.
Contents
Why this can’t happen in the USA
It can’t happen in the US for a different reason. The framers of the US Constitution were influenced by the Magna Carta and John Locke’s treatise on government and they built in separation of powers from the ground up. See the Wikipedia summary:
The US Constitution doesn't have an article 48 or anything resembling it.
Only Congress can make laws
The president implements the laws and with a few exceptions such as pardon power, has power only to the extent Congress granted it.
The Judiciary always has the final word on how to interpret laws which it decides according to the US Constitution.
Supreme Court cases establish that the military is bound by the US Constitution and that the US Constitution can never be suspended even in wartime.
This makes the US Constitution far more robust. Also since it’s a constitution for 50 states and 48 of them have to agree on any change, it is extremely difficult to change.
There is no situation where the president can take over from the government in the US even in war time.
The president can't change the US Constitution to add a loophole either, nor can Congress. Even Congress can’t change the US Constitution, nor can Republican controlled states. Only a bipartisan coalition of at least 48 of the US states ratifying every amendment in identical text in both chambers (or the one chamber for Nebraska which is unicameral).
Trump’s term limit is also set in the US Constitution, so Trump is out in 2028. There are a couple of very implausible ways he might try to get in via a backdoor, one is that he runs as Vance's running mate then Vance resigns, another is that a Republican president selects him as speaker and then president and Vice president resign.
And highly unlikely the public would vote for Republicans on a manifesto of such a maneuver to make Trump president again anyway.
And it wouldn't make him dictator and it wouldn't let him override the government. Nothing can.
Trump can’t close down Congress or take over the media like president Yoon did in South Korea - he can only suspend the right of insurrectionists to see a lawyer in detention - if he orders them to disperse first and they refuse
The US president doesn't have war powers like that to invoke. So Trump can't override Congress and get things done that he wanted to in the way president Yoon did.
Yoon was able to close down the South Korean parliament and take over all the media in South Korea. He briefly took over control of government and could have issued any instructions he liked, which in his case was just to get things done that the government wouldn't agree to because they didn't agree with his agenda.
QUOTE STARTS
All political activities, including the operations of the National Assembly, local assemblies, political parties, political associations, gatherings, and protests, are prohibited.
All media and publications are subject to the control of the Martial Law Command. https://www.csis.org/analysis/yoon-declares-martial-law-south-korea
That is why we saw the police stopping the legislators from going into their parliament. He tried to stop them from legislating to stop his period of martial law. But the police obeyed his instructions in a half-hearted way - the legislators were able to get through and the police later apologized for obeying his order. It was clear there wasn't any military emergency.
Yoon did have the power to do this in the SK constitution but it was a clearly illegal use of the presidential war powers. That is why he was impeached.
A US president however doesn't have any war powers like this in the US Constitution so can't do any of this.
The US Constitution can't be suspended. Only one provision can be suspended, the right to see a lawyer if you are detained - that's for the duration of an insurrection. It's for practical reasons. There may be many thousands who need to be detained in some big uprising and they can't all be given access to lawyers so for the duration of the insurrection they can be detained without trial and without access to lawyers.
However before doing that. Trump would have to order the insurrectionists to disperse peacefully. He can only detain insurrectionists if they have first been ordered to disperse and they refuse to do so - there are other ways to suspend the right to see a lawyer (habeaus corpus) but they are less plausible legally. I go into it here.
The media is protected in the USA by the first amendment. So he can’t close down the press either like Hitler did.
. The Press in the Third Reich
How Putin could become dictator - lack of an independent judiciary and easily edited constitution of Russia
First the basics. There are some things the president does have power to do from the US Constitution, such as pardon power. But most of his power is granted by Congress. Congress can withdraw that power.
Putin has whatever power he wants and there are no constraints on it - he can remove any constraints at will. He controls the media which just says whatever he wants it to say. There is lots of dialogue but he can control exactly what can and can't be said.
He has a corrupt Judiciary which will look the other way when he commits crimes. Russian media is completely under his control. The parliament is notionally multi-party but he used rigged elections, assassinations and imprisonment to remove any party or leader who may be a serious rival to him. So it's basically a one party system. Many parties with different views, but none can be permitted to be rivals to his party and his wishes.
Trump has none of that.
The Russian Constitution is just approved by a popular vote and they are rigged elections anyway. Also there is no free press. So Putin tells the population what to vote for, nobody else opposes him, he tells them what the new constitution is and then he will publish implausibly large numbers for the votes in favour of it.
. 2020 amendments to the Constitution of Russia - Wikipedia
Putin controls everything on Russian state television. For instance they are not allowed to call the Ukraine war a war, only a special operation. That is by Putin's instructions.
Russian TV is not even permitted to discuss the topic of censorship of the war coverage either. See: Special Military Operation.
Trump can't control what the media say about him.
Putin can change the Russian Constitution at any time according to his whim. For instance he rewrote large parts of the Russian Constitution in 2020 to allow him to stay on as president for 12 more years amongst other changes. 2020 Russian constitutional referendum.
Trump can't do that as the US Constitution can't be modified at all without cooperation of the legislators of all except 12 states.
Putin can assassinate rivals and the judiciary is so under his control they won't investigate suspicious circumstances such as when Putin visited a hospital and the same day Ravil Maganov, an oligarch who was critical of him and who was in the same hospital for treatment fell out of a hospital window and died, somehow, and with the internal cameras switched off for repairs so there is no evidence of what happened.
Story here Ravil Maganov#Death
Again Trump can't do that as the US has an independent judiciary. Any such case would go through the courts and they would find out what happened. Not in Russia.
Putin heads a single party government, in principle there is some diversity of political views. But he gets to choose who is in government as he rigs the elections and so they are all loyalist in one way or another. They do as they are told. They don't quite rubberstamp but close to it.
The US Congress is far more powerful than the president. Trump won't get much passed or at all.
The US Supreme Court is NOT favourable towards Trump. With the immunity decision, he didn't get what he wanted and the pre-trial investigation would certainly have found that he could be prosecuted if he hadn't won the election.
Trump has the worst record of any president in the Supreme Court at least since 1937 losing more than half his cases, and he also has a poor record in the lower courts.
How Hitler was able to expoit the Article 48 loophole to persuade the president to give Hitler the power to write any laws he liked
Back to how it worked for Hitler:
Article 48 allowed the president to take over in an emergency.
At the time Hindenberg was president. But with his cooperation, Hitler used the precedent of article 48 to pass the enabling act in Parliament
The enabling act shifted power from the president to the Chancellor, which was Hitler.
This let Hitler and his cabinet, effectively just Hitler, to write any laws he liked. The president no longer had any say in the laws.
When Hindenberg died Hitler then declared himself to be chancellor, president and head of the army in one person. Hitler then was the Fuhrer or dictator of all of Germany.
In more detail - how Hitler used the Weimar constitution to become dictator
This is a brief summary of how Hitler used the Weimar constitution to become dictator.
QUOTE
In 1932, the Nazi Party became the largest political party in Parliament. After a brief struggle for power, Hitler was named Chancellor in January 1933. Within weeks, he invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to quash many civil rights and suppress members of the Communist party.
In March 1933, Hitler introduced the Enabling Act to allow him to pass laws without the approval of Germany’s Parliament or President. To make sure the Enabling Act was passed, Hitler forcibly prevented Communist Parliament members from voting. Once it became law, Hitler was free to legislate as he saw fit and establish his dictatorship without any checks and balances.
END QUOTE
. Weimar Republic: Definition, Inflation & Collapse | HISTORY
The Enabling Act: with the communist deputies banned and the SA intimidating all the remaining non-Nazi deputies, the Reichstag voted by the required two-thirds majority to give Hitler the right to make laws without the Reichstag’s approval for four years.
Arguably this was the critical event during this period. It gave Hitler absolute power to make laws, which enabled him to destroy all opposition to his rule. This removed the Reichstag as a source of opposition.
…
Hitler became Führer: when Hindenburg died, Hitler declared himself jointly president, chancellor and head of the army. Members of the armed forces had to swear a personal oath of allegiance not to Germany, but to Hitler.
. Nazi control and dictatorship 1933-1939 - Edexcel
A bit more about the enabling act which gave the Chancellor the power to make laws by himself with his cabinet for four years. Amongst those laws Hitler made Germany a single party system with no legally permitted opposition.
More details here about how they came to include Article 48 and how Hitler was able to use it so easily:
QUOTE
The Weimar Constitution, however, represented Germany's first major step into a fundamentally democratic system of government. Many in the German elite remained monarchists, supportive of an authoritarian form of government, and unwilling to accept a constitution that challenged too many conservative values and which they viewed as radically liberal. As a result, the framers of the Weimar Constitution attempted the very difficult task of creating a system that would be acceptable to both the left and the right.
The constitution created
The Reichstag - legislature elected by the people. like Congress
The Chancellor responsible for the executive
President - ceremonial and political power directly elected by popular vote
The president could dismiss the chancellor and control the military - and call for new elections for the Reichstag whenever he wanted.
The Weimar Constitution established three central political forces.
* First, it created the Reichstag, a legislative body elected by the people. This congress was based on proportional representation, meaning that its seats were divided based on the percentage of the popular vote that each party received.
* Second, the Chancellor was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the government, particularly in the executive branch. It was expected that the Chancellor would be elected from the ranks of the majority party or coalition in the Reichstag.
* Third, the President held overall ceremonial and real political power. He was directly elected by popular vote and could dismiss the Chancellor. He also controlled the military and could call for new Reichstag elections at will. The office of the President was intended by right-wing politicians to be a check on the powers of the legislature as the President could essentially create and destroy governments at will.
...
President Hindenburg routinely used article 48 to bypass the Reichstag. He invoked it 60 times in 1932 alone.
President Hindenburg, elected in 1925, was a former Prussian general and arch-conservative who distrusted democracy and the Weimar system. In addition, as a result of increasing economic and political turmoil, the Reichstag was often unable to come to a consensus supporting the Chancellor. Hindenburg, not interested in the ins and outs of parliamentary politics, began to routinely use Article 48 to achieve his aims.
The habit of ruling via decree rather than legislation weakened the power of the Reichstag as well as the public's confidence in the Weimar system. It also became a difficult habit to break. The President consistently operated outside of the very system he was meant to uphold. Hindenburg invoked Article 48 sixty times in 1932 alone.
END QUOTE
Article 48 let the president use armed force and suspend many civil rights
This is the text of article 48:
QUOTE
Article 48
If a state does not fulfil the obligations laid upon it by the Reich constitution or the Reich laws, the Reich President may use armed force to cause it to oblige.
In case public safety is seriously threatened or disturbed, the Reich President may take the measures necessary to reestablish law and order, if necessary using armed force. In the pursuit of this aim he may suspend the civil rights described in articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 154, partially or entirely.
The Reich President has to inform Reichstag immediately about all measures undertaken which are based on paragraphs 1 and 2 of this article. The measures have to be suspended immediately if Reichstag demands so.
If danger is imminent, the state government may, for their specific territory, implement steps as described in paragraph 2. These steps have to be suspended if so demanded by the Reich President or the Reichstag. Further details are provided by Reich law.
All this is now impossible - they learnt from the rise of Hitler and that’s why there is no possibility of suspending basic rights in the current constitution and many other provisions to make sure the likes of Hitler can never happen again in Germany.
Modern Germany can have a far right but not fascism
This is a result of the German constitution, which was overhauled after their experience of the rise of Hitler. Germany can have a far right but it is constitutionally impossible to have a fascist government.
. The Past Shapes the Future: The German Constitution at 70
Apart from the Basic Law, the rest of the German constitution can be amended by an absolute 2/3 majority in both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. It is well protected too, it requires not a 2/3 majority of those present voting but a 2/3 majority of all seats so it can't be amended by forcefully preventing some of the members from voting.
However the basic law is even more protected than the US constitution. 20 of the articles of the German constitution can only be extended not modified.
. Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany - Wikipedia
You can read the first 20 articles here, all the rights in those articles are protected to eternity by the eternity clause.
Article 79 (3) Amendments to this Basic Law affecting the division of the Federation into Länder, their participation in principle in the legislative process, or the principles laid down in Articles 1 and 20 shall be inadmissible.
These 20 articles protect basic human rights and freedoms. Article 20 guarantees a democracy. Other articles guarantee freedom of speech, of asssembly, to form parties, privacy, freedom of religion, etc.
This is stronger even than the US constitution.
In principle if 3/4 of the US states voted for it, they could modify the constitution itself and take away rights - not remotely credible but they could in theory.
It is intentionally made very difficult. It's never been modified to take away rights. It would require 3/4 of all US states to want to take away rights such as the right to vote, or the right to peacefully assemble to protest or the right to free speech. That is not going to happen.
For the US, the reason it's not going to happen is because it's impossible that 3/4 of US states vote to remove those rights.
Germany goes one step further with its eternity clause. There isn't even any process in law to remove democracy or basic rights in Germany.
In the case of Germany, the only way would be with a completely new constitution, which would need to be adopted in a majority vote referendum of the German people with at least a quarter of those eligible to vote taking part in the referendum. That's hardly likely to happen.
This option was included in case it was needed for reunification. In the end they decided they didn’t need a new constitution and just modified the existing one.
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany: History - Wikipedia
A country can never have a fascist dictator if it has a strong constitution ensuring a liberal democracy and has a genuinely independent judiciary
It is impossible to have a dictator if there is a strong constitution ensuring a liberal democracy, or its equivalent - as for the German basic law, or the US constitution, or the unwritten constitution in the UK which is just as strong because it has strong support of democracy and human rights and can't be edited at all.
The US has a far stronger constitution than Turkey and Hungary. It also guarantees basic rights and democracy as interpreted by a genuinely independent judiciary with life tenure and legislators can't change how it is interpreted only pass new laws.
In the US, though the judges are appointed by the Senate the judges themselves are genuinely independent and they have tenure for life and can't be fired by any legislator only impeached, a rare proceeding that requires judicial misconduct.
So the US also has a genuinely independent judiciary - despite what the media claims, they decide by judicial interpretative philosophy.
The Republican presidents tend to choose justices that are originalist (original meaning of the text) and structuralist (idea that you can deduce many things from the structure of the constitution not said explicitly) and that are formalist (that law has an unchanging meaning it's their task to uncover) rather than realist (that the uncertainty of law is a feature that helps justices adapt to changes in society).
But they are still independent justices and they decide by judicial reasoning NOT by party allegience.
So to prevent authoritarianism you need
a democratic constitution or some other guaranteed non authoritarian system -
strong protections that make it hard to change the constitution or at least hard to change the section that guarantees human rights and democracy (or whatever the favoured non authoritarian system but it is usually democracy).
a genuinely independent judiciary.
On that last point, for instance in Iran the Ayatollah can override any judicial decision so that's an example in the opposite direction of no independent judiciary. Russia is another example where essentially the president can override the judiciary. Turkey has a weak judiciary too and it is mainly through the weakness and lack of independence of the judiciary that it became authoritarian.
See:
Countries vary hugely in the strength of their constitution and how easy it is to change. We have already looked at three of them
US constitution is one of the most robust due to the large number of states, 50 states and 3/4 of them have to approve any change in the constitution.
German constitution has a core section that guarantees a properly functioning democracy that has no way to get changed.
UK has an unwritten constitution which is also very robust - there is no mechanism that can change it. Luckily it is a good unwritten constitution though it would be tricky if we wanted to get rid of the symbolic monarchy from it.
In the other direction, the North Korean constitution can be changed just by the leader saying he wants a change and then his parliament approves it and he gets completely rewritten from time to time, not even anything left in common with the previous constitution.
Far fetched “people’s chancellor” scenario - that the AfD could try to attack the basic law by replacing members of the federal constitutional court - the German version of the supreme court with justices that ignore the law - a hypothetical by a legal scholar that isn’t possible in the real world
Note - this does NOT apply ot the USA. The US is protected by the US Constitution and there is simply no way to convince 48 states to pass an amendment in both chambers (single chamber for Nebraska) to give more power to the president.
Germany can change its constitution by popular vote so in principle it could change it more easily. The US can't do that. But to do that first Germany would need to agree to hold a referendum to change the constitution - and there are other obstacles Germany has that prevents that happening.
A strong constitution needs an independent judiciary to protect it. N-TV in Germany had an article about a claim that the AfD if they got in power could slowly chip away at the way the Judiciary works until it no longer protects the Basic law any more - with justices at the top making decisions that illegally just ignore the Basic law. Then in this plan they would say the constitution is no longer working and that would lead to a new constitution.
So I need to do a fact check of that. The article is here in German, I’m reading it with auto-translate.
Wie die AfD die Demokratie aushebeln könnte
This scenario depends on an authoritarian 2/3 majority in the Bundestag to change the Federal Constitutional Court. That has to be changed first. It requires an authoritarian majority to change that rule form 2/3 first to a simple majority.
There is no prospect of this either. There is no way the AfD is going to get half the seats in parliament. It says
QUOTE Now, an authoritarian majority in the Bundestag is currently hardly conceivable.
So then it turns to the state level.
It then says that it would be possible for AfD to get 33% in the local state elections which could let it interfere with many democratic processes at the state level.
QUOTE STARTS
If the AfD breaks the 33.3 percent mark, and that is what it currently looks like, its power factor will increase enormously. Because with this blocking minority it could prevent the two-thirds majority in the state parliament.
The result would be chaos in the state government. This serves the narrative that "the government can't get anything done, the system is failing and the AfD is the only party that can properly lead the people," says Beck. "And of course that's grist for the mill of the populists." Mistrust in the government continues to grow, the AfD benefits - and can further expand support for itself. "And we've already arrived there."
So it is saying that if the AfD messes up government enough then people may vote for them to fix the mess they created which doesn't sound very plausible to me.
Then for the idea of an authoritarian government then this is based on a piece by a legal expert some years ago - who basically asks if there is any loophole that could lead to overturning Basic law.
He sketched out a very long involved convoluted sequence of law changes that could eventually in a series of steps lead to that point. But it needs a popular Chancellor who manages to get an authoritarian majority (Hitler didn't get a majority when they had free elections)
Then after that quite a convoluted process. I'm not sure it is meant to be realistic or more a kind of hypothetical that they should work to make sure can't happen.
QUOTE STARTS
The lawyer Maximilian Steinbeis outlined years ago that something similar would also be possible in Germany . According to the founder of the constitutional blog, the rule of law is not as robust as many assume. If anti-democrats had the majority in the Bundestag, writes Steinbeis, it would only take one legislative period "to unhinge the Basic Law." The first point of attack is the Federal Constitutional Court, describes Steinbeis. It is particularly vulnerable. If it ultimately fails as an essential control body, the authoritarian-populist party will have its way.
His blog post is here, it's a long complicated process during which the Chancellor gradually changes how the Federal Constitutional Court works and how its justices are appointed and eventually leading to a call for a totally new constitution on a claim that the Basic law isn't working any more.
A people's chancellor https://verfassungsblog-de.translate.goog/ein-volkskanzler/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
However the NDTV article goes on to say that there isn't any potential for an authoritarian majority in the Bundestag
QUOTE STARTS
If you apply the recently revealed expulsion fantasies of some AfD politicians to this scenario, the extent of the danger becomes clear. German citizenship is constitutionally protected and arbitrariness is strictly prohibited. However, the constitution can be changed with the necessary majorities. The extreme right's "master plan" would then no longer be as absurd as it currently appears.
Now, an authoritarian majority in the Bundestag is currently hardly conceivable, and the next federal election won't be until 2025 anyway. However, the situation is different in three eastern German federal states, where there are many indications that the AfD will soon be successful in the elections. Using Thuringia as an example, Steinbeis and a research team are investigating what happens when an authoritarian-populist party like the AfD gets power at the state level.
So then the post goes down to the state level
QUOTE STARTS
Beck sums it up like this: "If the AfD actually makes it into the next state government, the rule of law would be at risk." Now there is currently not much to suggest actual government participation. An absolute majority is unlikely and all parties represented in the Thuringian state parliament always emphasize the firewall against the right
...
Against this background, Steinbeis constructs the following scenario: If Björn Höcke runs in the third round of voting and the Left and the CDU were unable to agree on an opposing candidate, then the President of the State Parliament could determine that Höcke was elected Prime Minister with the votes of the AfD alone.
But it's not just the position of state parliament president. If the AfD breaks the 33.3 percent mark, and that is what it currently looks like, its power factor will increase enormously. Because with this blocking minority it could prevent the two-thirds majority in the state parliament. Important democratic processes could be blocked in series, such as constitutional changes, the appointment of constitutional judges - or the dismissal of the president of the state parliament. A vicious circle.
The result would be chaos in the state government. This serves the narrative that "the government can't get anything done, the system is failing and the AfD is the only party that can properly lead the people," says Beck. "And of course that's grist for the mill of the populists." Mistrust in the government continues to grow, the AfD benefits - and can further expand support for itself. "And we've already arrived there."
More about the far fetched "people's chancellor" scenario
This is about the 2/3 rule which would have to be changed first.
To change any of the justices in the Federal Constitutional Court would take a 2/3 majority in Bundestag or Bundesrat
The Court consists of two Senates, each of them with eight Justices. Currently, the President presides over the First Senate, the Vice-President over the Second Senate. Both Senates form Chambers with three members each. Each of the 16 Justices is assisted by four judicial clerks who have gained relevant professional experience at ordinary courts, public authorities, law firms or universities.
Half of the 16 Justices of the Federal Constitutional Court are elected by the Bundestag, and half by the Bundesrat. The President and Vice-President of the Court are also elected, in turns, by the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. A two-thirds majority is required in both electoral bodies to ensure that the composition of the Senates is well-balanced.
All this also assumes that a new populist chancellor can select Justices that illegally and improperly make decisions on political / personal motives instead of based on their understanding of law.
I don't know how possible that is. A well trained justice wouldn't do this. It would be very unprofessional.
In the German legal system, justices have to be qualified justices and can be suspended from duty if any court finds they have violated the Basic law amongst other things. Relevant phrases in bold here:
QUOTE STARTS
If judgment is given against a judge by a German court within the area of application of this Act imposing
1. a sentence of at least one year’s imprisonment for a criminal offence committed with intent,
2. a sentence of imprisonment for a criminal offence committed with intent and punishable in accordance with the provisions concerning the ban on wars of aggression, high treason, endangering the democratic state under the rule of law or concerning treason and endangering external security,
3. disqualification from holding public office, or
4. forfeiture of a basic right under Article 18 of the Basic Law,
then judicial tenure ceases on entry into final and binding effect of such judgment, without any need for a further judicial decision.
This is about how the Basic Law could be invalidated by a new constitution adopted by a free decision of the German people. It would require a majority vote in a referendum that gets votes from at least a quarter of the German population.
QUOTE STARTS
Article 146 (Duration of validity of the Basic Law)
This Basic Law, which, since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany, applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on the day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect.
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
The possibility of holding a referendum is explicitly foreseen for the reorganisation of federal territory (e.g. the referendum to merge Berlin and Brandenburg proposed in 1995) or for a replacement of the Basic Law. The second case is regulated by Article 146 GG, which stipulates that the current Basic Law “shall cease to apply on the day on which a Basic Law freely adopted by the German people takes effect.”
. germany-heading-towards-referendum
Article 29 : 6
A majority in a referendum or in a plebiscite shall consist of a majority of the votes cast, provided that they amount to at least one quarter of the population entitled to vote in Bundestag elections. Other detailed provisions concerning referendums, popular petitions and plebiscites (Volksentscheide, Volksbefragungen) shall be made in a federal statute; such statute may also provide that popular petitions may not be repeated within a period of five years.
So - it is legally valid, the site is a reputable one - but very hypothetical and hard to see it happening in the real world.
This is about the site that legal blog post is on Verfassungsblog - Wikipedia
It's respectable but that doesn't mean it is a real world realistic scenario.
See also
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