Totalitarians delegitimized parliamentary majorities by exposing their spuriousness.

Evidence

Thus when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not necessarily correspond to the realities of the country, thereby undermining the self-respect and the confidence of governments which also believed in majority rule rather than in their constitutions. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 748

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how anti-democratic movements weaponize the gap between formal majority rule and actual popular sentiment — a mechanism later Islamophobia readings trace in anti-immigrant politics.