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   malte (malte@radikal.social)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 08:50:25 JST malte

   • Evan Prodromou

   @evan No, but. No, because in several ways, the United States represents a cooptation of the democratic spirit. Until around the mid 19th Cent. 'democracy' was a slur against popular revolts not unlike how 'terrorism' is used today against all sorts of things like climate action, labor strikes etc. The US establishment claimed 'democracy' when they managed to change it to mean voting for a representative. David Graeber told the story in his 2013 book The Democracy Project.

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     kuteboiCoder (kuteboicoder@subs4social.xyz)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 08:53:20 JST kuteboiCoder

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @malte@radikal.social @evan@cosocial.ca
     
     This is unironically true (from a 17th century standpoint). But it's still odd that Jefferson and Madison - anti-Hamiltonians and tradcuck populists both - chose to call their resistance party the Democratic-Republican Party.
     
     They chose to call themselves a slur. #faggotfathers #bvsed

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     kuteboiCoder (kuteboicoder@subs4social.xyz)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 08:58:53 JST kuteboiCoder

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @malte@radikal.social @evan@cosocial.ca
     
     It wasn't until the Jacksonian era that the word "democracy" was unequivocally good and fully linked with Americanism in official policymaking circles.
     
     That's when Alexis de Tocquville wrote his magnum opus, "The American Republic" - later published under the title "Democracy in America".

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     M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 03:41:46 JST M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • kuteboiCoder

     @KuteboiCoder @evan @malte
     Democracy is not unequivocally good, and the erroneous perception that it is muddles our judgements of state actions.

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