Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Will Ogilvie Vega de Seoane
“Alexis de Tocqueville didn’t journey across the United States to write a travelogue — he set out to craft a mirror. He wasn’t interested in landscapes or monuments. He wanted to understand democracy not as an abstract theory but as a living, breathing reality. He wanted to see its people — their passions, their dreams, the way they lived, worked, and shaped their own future. But more than all of that, he wanted them to see themselves. His concern wasn’t that democracy would collapse overnight in a violent coup. Nor did he fear the rise of radical ideologies, from the left or the right, as much as something far more insidious: the slow suffocation of freedom under layers of bureaucracy, endless rules, the tyranny of the majority, and growing public apathy. He saw it coming. And, in many ways, we’re living it today.” (03/28/25)