Democracy in America

A closing chapter in Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is titled “������ Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.”

But since Trump’s speech at the airport in Waco, Texas, two years ago, and especially since January this year, I’ve been forced to the conclusion — as many others have — that constitutional democracy in America really is now under severe threat.

The idea made sense: Most people have never seen a car wreck, and expanding our imaginations by showing us the actual carnage did, I suspect, scare some of us into holding that steering wheel at the steady 10-and-2 position….We just don’t have a similar conceptualization for the end of democracy in America….

And what they're doing is shifting the tone of democracy in America.

I hope to focus on the things that I can do to help defend democracy in America — mostly by staying in my lane and explaining anti-democratic rhetorical tricks.