The 246-year-old experiment that is democracy in America

Photo by Max Sulik on Unsplash

How to view democracy in America?

** A 246-year-old experiment that’s failing?

** A 246-year-old experiment that worked until it didn’t?

** A 246-year-old illustration of Plato’s view that the eventual three-part cycle of change is democracy, leading to an oligarchy, which ends in tyranny?

One might have thought Harvey Mansfield, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, would have an answer.

After all, not only is Professor Mansfield exceedingly erudite — in 2022, he marks 60 years of teaching at Harvard – he is also one of the world’s leading authorities on Alexis de Tocqueville. What Tocqueville didn’t say about democracy in America in his two-volume ‘Democracy in America’ doesn’t bear saying.

But in a recent conversation with Yascha Mounk of Persuasion, Professor Mansfield wasn’t willing to predict how American democracy might turn out, here on in. Have a listen, if you can, to the discussion —  click here  — but if not, some …