I spent most of Trump’s first term representing America in Muslim-majority countries. A bomb going off near the embassy didn’t shake me the way the sincere questions about democracy did.
I am reminded of a Zachary Karabell quote from something he wrote in 2025:
"The idea that democracy naturally produces good, kind, liberal outcomes is part of the current morass. It can produce those, but as the Founding Fathers understood, democracy can just as easily amplify disruptive, angry, and potentially destructive behavior—all while remaining fully and genuinely democratic."
Hard but important to remember democracy doesn't mean we always make good choices, just that those choices are more reflective of our collective wishes than more authoritarian systems
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system that had legal and regulatory variability, policy variability, an intentionally diffused and pluralized private sector, and local fiscal dominance. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they don't offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
Hi. Well, its a broad topic so that we would depend on what area of it. But for a broad based, well I'd recommend the book by one of the old system's key designers: President Martin Van Buren's 'Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States'
The noise and heat and awkwardness and unpredictability is the point of democracy. It's the system working as intended. Suppressing debate usually ends in bloodshed, and you never know whose blood until afterwards.
Tell people that ask these questions to learn about the Bourbon restoration in France, specifically the career of Charles X.
Charles thought he could and should do away with modern nonsense like parliaments and elections and newspapers and public opinion, and rule as an 18th Century absolute ruler, using the army to protect the peace.
Thanks Greg! I wasn't familiar with myself. For any readers who see this comment and want to know more, this is a nice Claude summary:
Charles X spent 25 years in exile convinced the French Revolution was a bad dream, then got his hands on the throne and tried to prove it.
His brother Louis XVIII — who ruled before him — at least understood that you couldn't just pretend 1789 hadn't happened. Charles did not get that memo. When he finally became king in 1824, he held a coronation straight out of the Middle Ages, including literally touching sick people to cure them with his holy royal hands. Liberals were horrified. He thought it was great.
The reign went downhill from there. He paid out a billion francs to compensate nobles who'd lost property in the Revolution — funded by cutting the interest payments regular investors were counting on. He made desecrating the Eucharist a capital crime. He filled his government with the most extreme reactionaries he could find.
The French kept electing liberal parliaments to push back. His response, in 1830, was to just dissolve parliament, gut the free press, and rewrite the election rules mid-game. Classic "if I don't like the results, change the rules" move.
Paris immediately rose up. Three days of street fighting later, he was done.
He abdicated and spent his last years bouncing around European palaces — Edinburgh, Prague, a small city on the Italian border — and died of cholera in 1836, apparently still not sure what he'd done wrong.
You are welcome, Abi! I’ve been reading about the Congress of Vienna so that was uppermost in my mind.
A pity that Charles so exactly demonstrated Talleyrand’s quip about the Bourbons when Louis XVIII was restored to the throne by Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia: “they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.
There are many other examples of course. For example the American Founding Fathers had been through a revolution, so they knew intimately the dangers of suppressing spoken dissent. Hence the First Amendment.
This article came to mind about how autocrats and other power-grabbers manipulate the crowd to do their bidding - https://substack.com/@paperconnections/p-198536448 which is as you described, "[democracy] requires active maintenance. It actively reshapes itself". In a culture that eschews critical thinking and prone to magical thinking, the people are easily manipulated by all forms of media, whether generated by bots or humans directly.
I think the term "democracy" has been gamed in the 21st century through technology. Social media has handed a few people unprecedented power to manipulate voters at an almost atomic level of resolution, manufacturing synthetic opinions, synthetic revolutions, and, as the icing on the democracy cake, the election of Donald Trump to office twice. Then came the joke of the century: letting him run the government the way he is running it. Democracy in 2026 doesn't mean what it meant in 1926. The word needs an updated meaning for what it has come to represent... America is leading the way once again like it did back in the days with this new brand of democracy.
I'm curious: my sense of the vibe in tech culture is that there is not much attachment to liberal democracy. Its value is purely instrumental, in that it is a system that allows winners to win big and keeps losing from stopping them; and insofar as it fails to serve that purpose, it is dispensable.
Do you think this is accurate, or a misrepresentation attributable to the outsized visibility of people like Elon Must, Peter Theil, etc?
I'm an outsider to the tech world myself, but from the people I talk to, they're pretty pro-democracy, primarily because all alternatives always seem quite worse. :)
Great piece.
I am reminded of a Zachary Karabell quote from something he wrote in 2025:
"The idea that democracy naturally produces good, kind, liberal outcomes is part of the current morass. It can produce those, but as the Founding Fathers understood, democracy can just as easily amplify disruptive, angry, and potentially destructive behavior—all while remaining fully and genuinely democratic."
https://edgyoptimist.substack.com/p/hyperbolic-hyperbole
Hard but important to remember democracy doesn't mean we always make good choices, just that those choices are more reflective of our collective wishes than more authoritarian systems
True, I had the pleasure of realizing this abroad, seeing it through the eyes of others looking at us.
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system that had legal and regulatory variability, policy variability, an intentionally diffused and pluralized private sector, and local fiscal dominance. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they don't offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
Thanks Mike! I’d love to learn more. Any books you recommend about it?
Hi. Well, its a broad topic so that we would depend on what area of it. But for a broad based, well I'd recommend the book by one of the old system's key designers: President Martin Van Buren's 'Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States'
The noise and heat and awkwardness and unpredictability is the point of democracy. It's the system working as intended. Suppressing debate usually ends in bloodshed, and you never know whose blood until afterwards.
Tell people that ask these questions to learn about the Bourbon restoration in France, specifically the career of Charles X.
Charles thought he could and should do away with modern nonsense like parliaments and elections and newspapers and public opinion, and rule as an 18th Century absolute ruler, using the army to protect the peace.
Well, he found out how well that works.
Thanks Greg! I wasn't familiar with myself. For any readers who see this comment and want to know more, this is a nice Claude summary:
Charles X spent 25 years in exile convinced the French Revolution was a bad dream, then got his hands on the throne and tried to prove it.
His brother Louis XVIII — who ruled before him — at least understood that you couldn't just pretend 1789 hadn't happened. Charles did not get that memo. When he finally became king in 1824, he held a coronation straight out of the Middle Ages, including literally touching sick people to cure them with his holy royal hands. Liberals were horrified. He thought it was great.
The reign went downhill from there. He paid out a billion francs to compensate nobles who'd lost property in the Revolution — funded by cutting the interest payments regular investors were counting on. He made desecrating the Eucharist a capital crime. He filled his government with the most extreme reactionaries he could find.
The French kept electing liberal parliaments to push back. His response, in 1830, was to just dissolve parliament, gut the free press, and rewrite the election rules mid-game. Classic "if I don't like the results, change the rules" move.
Paris immediately rose up. Three days of street fighting later, he was done.
He abdicated and spent his last years bouncing around European palaces — Edinburgh, Prague, a small city on the Italian border — and died of cholera in 1836, apparently still not sure what he'd done wrong.
You are welcome, Abi! I’ve been reading about the Congress of Vienna so that was uppermost in my mind.
A pity that Charles so exactly demonstrated Talleyrand’s quip about the Bourbons when Louis XVIII was restored to the throne by Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia: “they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.
There are many other examples of course. For example the American Founding Fathers had been through a revolution, so they knew intimately the dangers of suppressing spoken dissent. Hence the First Amendment.
This article came to mind about how autocrats and other power-grabbers manipulate the crowd to do their bidding - https://substack.com/@paperconnections/p-198536448 which is as you described, "[democracy] requires active maintenance. It actively reshapes itself". In a culture that eschews critical thinking and prone to magical thinking, the people are easily manipulated by all forms of media, whether generated by bots or humans directly.
Thank you for sharing Sharon! This is a really fascinating article that I might write about later too!
Beautifully stated. Free speech doesn't guarantee good outcomes, but eliminating it will guarantee bad ones.
Thanks Nico!! That’s a great way to put it!
Really well written. Totally agree. As a former FSO I totally feel your pain. Glad I’m not in the foreign service at the moment.
Thanks Bob!
I think the term "democracy" has been gamed in the 21st century through technology. Social media has handed a few people unprecedented power to manipulate voters at an almost atomic level of resolution, manufacturing synthetic opinions, synthetic revolutions, and, as the icing on the democracy cake, the election of Donald Trump to office twice. Then came the joke of the century: letting him run the government the way he is running it. Democracy in 2026 doesn't mean what it meant in 1926. The word needs an updated meaning for what it has come to represent... America is leading the way once again like it did back in the days with this new brand of democracy.
Democracy is definitely being strained now! :( My guess is that TV and the first-past-the-post system also exacerbated this too.
I'm curious: my sense of the vibe in tech culture is that there is not much attachment to liberal democracy. Its value is purely instrumental, in that it is a system that allows winners to win big and keeps losing from stopping them; and insofar as it fails to serve that purpose, it is dispensable.
Do you think this is accurate, or a misrepresentation attributable to the outsized visibility of people like Elon Must, Peter Theil, etc?
I'm an outsider to the tech world myself, but from the people I talk to, they're pretty pro-democracy, primarily because all alternatives always seem quite worse. :)