Democracy in America 

From the Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of writer Alexis de Tocqueville, born in Paris (1805). He was 25 years old when the French government sent him to America to study the prison system. He spent nine months touring towns and cities and taking notes. A few years later, he published his famous book, Democracy in America (1835).

During his tour the aristocratic Tocqueville was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked. He wrote:

“There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state. I do not know if they would come out with credit from thoroughly difficult political situations. But they are adequate for the ordinary run of society. In spite of their petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners, they clearly can provide practical intelligence, and that is found to be enough.”

It would be interesting to know what he’d say now.  In 2016, the American electorate with their “petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners” produced a president who came incredibly close to subverting American democracy and rising to the level of an authoritarian.  Nine months after the election that removed him from office, we’re still not in the clear, with tens of millions of Americans believing that the process was rigged and that our voting procedures are corrupt.