Early Warnings for Democracy in America
Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India, November 19th, 2016.
Salaroche

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1854) was a French Political Scientist and Historian credited with crafting a sharp and long-lasting description of the American political psyche. To this day, de Tocqueville is still considered in American Political Science and History circles as a unique source for studying the pros and the cons embedded in the foundations of Democracy in America.

Below are some quotations from his work that may be applicable to the present political situation in the United States.

“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America."

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” 

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
 
“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”

“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.” 

“Patriotism is most often nothing more but an extension of individual egoism” 

“You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there; and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.” 

“What one must fear, moreover, is not so much the sight of the immorality of the great as that of immorality leading to greatness.” 

“Consequently, in the United States the law favors those classes which are most interested in evading it elsewhere.” 

“If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the (Electoral College) majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.” (Brackets by Salaroche)

“[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of [many of] their women.” (Brackets by Salaroche)