Yes I agree with you, of course, in theory it should work like this. But all around me I see things going so terribly wrong, so I assume practice must be somewhat different from the theory.
E.g. in my country far-right politicians have been democratically elected and they are dismantling the nation and changing the constitution, all legally.
Edit: Nobody is giving a f-ck neither internally nor externally (e.g. OTAN or EU) so I assume they are fine with it too.