Alexis De Tocqueville: Democracy In America

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Democracy in America written by Alexis de Tocqueville gives insight into the strengths and weakness of American democracy. Given a grant by the French government, de Tocqueville traveled to the United States with his friend Gustave de Beaumont to observe the effects American democracy had on its people, and to point out the strengths and weakness of the system that governed them. In his home country France, democracy seemed to be exotic and new. But, he believed that democracy would be the future of the world, and so, he wanted to know what that would be like. On his nine month journey across the new nation, he assembled one of the most recognized political works of his time. His love for this new democratic style government was largely …show more content…
Even some of the flaws that were pointed out in Democracy in America still persist, such as our intolerance to differing political opinions and our want to achieve economic success is at times met by disappointment. I believe de Tocqueville’s motivation to study American democracy sprung from his country’s history of inadequate government. France, or even Europe for that matter has never witnessed a system of government where the power of the government rested on the thoughts and opinions of the people. Alexis de Tocqueville hoped for other nations to diverge from the path of absolute power, such as theocracies or monarchies, and to persuade them to take note of the government in …show more content…
The ability for the president to re-run for elections is still in act today. De Tocqueville believed that re-elections limited the independence of the executive branch by forcing the president to appease to the whims of the people, rather than to make decisions based on what he thought would be just, this indirectly lead to too much power in the legislative branch, the branch that represented the people the most. Furthermore, De Tocqueville would have been disgusted by our rampant materialism. Money has such a huge role in today’s government and society that with enough money, certain people who should not be president could potentially become president. This undermines the notion of equality, where people in power deserved to be in power because of their ideas and views coinciding with that of the people, and how they were able to earn that position through meritocracy, not aristocracy. Well, in today’s society one could earn a good job and enter into a good college based on birth. Alexis de Tocqueville stated aristocracy is declining but really a new class of wealth has emerged. Alexis de Tocqueville intensely valued the equality the American Democracy had to offer, but today the equality de Tocqueville praised so much is not so inherently displayed in today’s society such as in our modern wealth inequality
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