But just now we cannot rely on the genius alone of our wise forbears. Read enough of the right Whitman and you can believe again that American democracy may yet be “the continent indissoluble … with the life-long love of comrades”. “O Democracy, for you, for you I am trilling these songs,” wrote our most exuberant democrat. We inhale Whitman’s verses and are captured by the hypnotic power of democracy. And oh! how we love Walt Whitman’s fabulously open, infinite democratic spirit. We turn to Alexis de Tocqueville for his stunning insights into American individualism while we love to believe his claims that democracy would create greater equality. We quote wise scribes such as George Orwell on how there may be a latent fascist waiting to emerge in all humans, or Hannah Arendt on how democracies are inherently unstable and susceptible to ruin by aggressive, skilled demagogues. Some of us pick up our pens and do what we can. Should we in the intellectual classes position our warnings in satire, in jeremiads, in social scientific data, in historical analogy, in philosophical wisdom we glean from so many who have instructed us about the violence and authoritarianism of the 20th century? Or should we just scream after our holiday naps? A merican democracy is in peril and nearly everyone paying attention is trying to find the best way to say so.
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