Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Association

Tocqueville warned of the “tyranny of the majority” in the 1830s, but that is not the primary danger facing democracy in America today. The nonprofit More in Common has found that an “exhausted majority” of Americans, roughly two-thirds of the population, holds more pragmatic and moderate views that fall between those of ideologues on the right and left. Today, Tocqueville would discern the primary threat of tyranny not in the resigned members of this majority but rather in the vocal minorities that have lashed themselves to the poles of our politics.