The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. - Alexis de Tocqueville
America is not unique. Not any more.
Throughout its history The United States of America has exported an idea over rails, roads, waves, wires and sky, and the world has danced to its music. When the US and the USSR had the rest of the planet looking down the barrel of a nuclear powered gun, Reagan called for Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" The Russian people, hungry for bread and democracy, complied. Since then, most of the world's populace has come to experience some degree of American-style democratic representation.
Yet in Reagan's America only two out of every five people who were eligible voted in the 2012 Presidential Election. In a time when the biggest challenge facing a potential voter is not a dearth of information about a candidate but rather the overwhelming amount of it, over 40% of eligible Americans seemed to be more interested in the size of Kim Kardashian's ass.
What would de Tocqueville make of our democracy today? What would the people who fell under police batons on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 say to those who choose to stay home on election day?
Maybe they shouldn't say anything.
For while democracy is supposed to hinge on the active participation of the people, maybe a populace more interested in voting for the next American Idol instead of the next American president is, in a sense, having its say? Maybe not.
Throughout its history The United States of America has exported an idea over rails, roads, waves, wires and sky, and the world has danced to its music. When the US and the USSR had the rest of the planet looking down the barrel of a nuclear powered gun, Reagan called for Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" The Russian people, hungry for bread and democracy, complied. Since then, most of the world's populace has come to experience some degree of American-style democratic representation.
Yet in Reagan's America only two out of every five people who were eligible voted in the 2012 Presidential Election. In a time when the biggest challenge facing a potential voter is not a dearth of information about a candidate but rather the overwhelming amount of it, over 40% of eligible Americans seemed to be more interested in the size of Kim Kardashian's ass.
What would de Tocqueville make of our democracy today? What would the people who fell under police batons on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 say to those who choose to stay home on election day?
Maybe they shouldn't say anything.
For while democracy is supposed to hinge on the active participation of the people, maybe a populace more interested in voting for the next American Idol instead of the next American president is, in a sense, having its say? Maybe not.
Header art by M. Guzzio & T. Guzzio .
