After Obama, a New Dawn or More of the Same?

Nearly four decades ago, political pundits were shocked as voters turned away President Jimmy Carter and voted in Ronald Reagan, who promised to bring fundamental change to Washington and the indwelling political establishment. At the time, unemployment was rising quickly and inflation raged in double-digits, and Reagan had promised to deal with the economic failures by cutting income tax rates, slashing government spending, and reducing the regulatory burden.

Democracy in America, Part I

Tocqueville begins his story by discussing the “Exterior Form of North America,” and in particular, the part that would become the United States. By European standard, it was a vast territory, dominated by the great central valley of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. In the east there were dense forests, to the west seemingly endless prairies. When European man came to the lands of the Caribbean and South America, he found Nature to be generous, a constant delight. Middle America, what would become the United States, was a land made for work.

The Introduction to Democracy in America

In the “Author’s Introduction” to the volumes that appeared in 1835, Tocqueville sketches the aim, approach and major themes that will dominate the whole work. Equality of condition was the fact that most impressed him in the United States, he says,

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