"by getting elected again he has now served out his purpose and now would likely be most useful as a martyr." 

The above, I think, gets right to the point. I really do think we need to stop looking at 1930s Berlin or 1920s Tokyo for understanding of our current predicament and go back to looking at things like the death of the Athenian Republic after the disaster of the Peloponnesian Wars, or the last century of  Rome, times like that, of genuine civilizational change.

Like, for instance, the period between 325AD to about 476AD,  from the convention of Christian leaders at the Council of Nicaea and Emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Empire of Rome in 325AD to Rome's utter collapse and ruination 150 years later in 476AD. The Dark Ages lasted a thousand years, with Roman power remaining nothing more than a memory and cautionary tale. 

The Church, of course, lived on, through Kings, Czars, Crusades, Inquisitions, and now in its most debased form, after the successful McDonaldization of Jesus Christ, the fast-food subculture known as the MAGAChurch.

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