Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States.
France must have conquered the United States.
I think he would. He talked about what would happen if America was taken over by Aristocrats. He would be surprised though that Islam has conjured America.
Islam does not pride itself for having countless halls of higher learning where common sense and individualism is wrung out of students and replaced with politically correct garbage for several generations. They never offered their citizens the opportunity to destroy themselves with policies that watered down their ultimate goal of world domination. They never empowered their bureaucrats to make rules or regulations and wrestle control from the ruling class. Their checks and balances are still in place. We have sold ours for votes to anyone that promised more freebees . We are constantly telling them they have to change their way of life to meet our expectations when in their opinion it’s a road to self destruction and all they have to do is sit back and wait. It’s a war between well educated, politically correct fools and religious camel herders. My bet in the long run is on them. Seen any Mosques that are not well attended ? Any Churches that are ? Any harmony between Muslims and Christians once the Muslim numbers are formidable ? Any admittance that Sharia law is bad and should be discarded ? Any sign that our politicians are getting smarter on immigration policies ? They still expect the Muslims to change. Yup…any day now.
I think he would recognize todays America all to well.
Tocqueville wrote the book on the conditions in France leading up to the multiple revolutions.
We Americans and Canadians are living those times again.
New Royalty, new aristocracies and no equality before the law. In fact major confusion as to what the law is today.
Special favors for the chosen ones, no one is responsible or accountable.
Power abused, the citizen has no rights.. Oh yeah Tocqueville would recognize us all right.
We are drifting into the upheaval he lived through.
I’m sure de Tocqueville wouldn’t even bother with a trip to the US today. AAMOF if de Tocqueville was alive today he would be so disgusted with the collapse of republic democracy and civil rights in the west he would probably buy a south pacific island and go into reclusion
Not really, Occam. Remember, De Tocqueville was a royalist. He went to the US to gain an understanding of the likely results of the political movement which was then sweeping Europe in the 1830s. And it’s to his credit as an analyst and historian that he gained such a deep understanding. More likely he would conclude that, despite momentary aberrations, monarchical authoritarianism really is the default political condition of the human race.