Thread by @nycjayjay

Deep breath moment:

It looks increasingly like Biden will win the presidency and we will have a split senate. Over 60 million Americans will have voted for Trump, despite all they know about him. This can be hard to stomach, and many folks close to me... /1

have wondered aloud how it is the American people can support open racism, creeping fascism, misogyny, climate denial and even contemptible, obvious narcissism in their leader. Having no ready answers, I went back and brushed up on some... /2

Alexis de Toqueville, a French fellow who traveled to the U.S. and wrote about America in the 1800s. He was fascinated and somewhat repulsed by our democracy here. He warned of its excesses, even while predicting... /3

that it ultimately would become the only acceptable form of government for a free people.

Of Americans, he said that the promise of opportunity and advancement might permit the “most talented or lucky among them to fulfill their goals” but as time passed... /4

and the majority failed to raise themselves up, “a bitterness took hold and choked their spirits, and that the hatred of themselves and their masters grew fierce.”

Of the majority (white) Americans, he warned... /5

of a “tyranny of the majority,” where the larger group could be “severe and hostile to minorities,” where even belonging to a minority group of any kind could be perceived as unacceptable or even a threat. Democratic... /6

culture could wind up demonizing any assertion of difference, “especially of cultural superiority or high mindedness, which could be perceived as offensive to the majority.”

Reading these words, I wonder if we really have changed much at all... /7

since the 1800s when deTocqueville took up his sharp pen to critique our new nation. Much if not all of this still resonates as true today. Stepping back a few paces, we might see our current dilemma... /8

in the context of something inherent and even broken within democracy itself, especially one such as ours: a democracy on steroids of social media, tribalism and misinformation.... /9

But like de Tocqueville, we don’t have any better system with which to replace it. All we can do is fight its excesses and attend its dangers. /end