It sometimes is a single person. Consider the failed beer hall demagogue who wrecked a nation, a continent, and nearly a world.

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UncleOxidant an hour ago | parent [-]

To both of your points: the beer hall demagogue wouldn't have gotten to Chancellor if the German elites hadn't decided that he really couldn't do that much damage and we may as well let him be chancellor to quiet down his followers. Even after the putsch, he got a very light sentence because the judge was sympathetic with his right-wing cause. You're both right to some extent. A huge amount of damage was done by one man, but he got to where he did because the German elites thought that he might be useful to their cause.

	▲	pfdietz an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		All events have multiple causes. But history turned on what he did, and would have been very different otherwise.
	▲	vidarh 15 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Indeed, and that is perhaps the most important lesson of Hitlers rise - dangerous people will always exist, and so it is critical to have systems that are resilient to them, and not allow them to be hollowed out just because the current crop of leaders looks like they can be trusted with more power and less oversight, because who knows what kind of madman will get power next.