As America approaches its 250th birthday, friends and admirers at home and abroad worry that it has lost its shimmer. To celebrate this milestone, we recommend reading Alexis de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America', a book that offers a profound understanding of American democracy.
Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, visited America in the 1830s and wrote a two-volume book that mixes political science, sociology, journalism, and prediction. His observations on American democracy, politics, and society remain relevant today.
One of the best passages in the book describes the contrast between the two banks of the Ohio river, where a slave state (Kentucky) and a free state (Ohio) coexisted. Tocqueville was struck by the differences between the two societies, with one side degrading work and the other honoring it.
The book has extra resonance now because of the echoes of the 1830s in the Trump era. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, was a populist who governed as a frontiersman, farmer, and slaveholder. Tocqueville thought Jackson was ghastly, but he approved of his informality, which was significant in revealing the democratic society.
Tocqueville's book is not all boosterish. He warns that democracy can undo itself, and that the majority can raise formidable barriers to liberty of opinion. He feared democratic unravelling, where citizens would give up on politics and leave it to someone else, leading to an immense and tutelary power that seeks to keep people in perpetual childhood.
Today, Tocqueville's warnings carry more weight, as America struggles with its own democratic challenges. Reading 'Democracy in America' is a must for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of American democracy.
