Whether we like it or not, what is happening in our country right now is, indeed, what democracy looks like. It looks like people being rounded up by soldiers wearing masks and being thrown into filthy, make-shift prisons. It looks like 4 million people losing their health insurance this January, myself included. It looks like universities being silenced and political enemies being prosecuted. Small boats in the Caribbean are being blown out of the water without trial or evidence.

I first read Plato as an undergraduate. Later, I studied his work in depth during my PhD coursework. Plato viewed democracy as a form of tyranny. He argued that democracy gives power to people who lack the wisdom and moral courage to govern. Alexis de Tocqueville described a “tyranny of the majority” in which injustice would prevail for those in the minority. It always amazes me that almost 2500 years after Plato lived his political writings in “The Republic” sound like a description of the United States in 2025. How can anyone be that wise? It sometimes dumbfounds me. Before I get started, I want people to know that, for me, this is not political. I am not a democrat, nor a liberal. I wrote my dissertation on the man who is considered the father of American conservatism, Russell Kirk. 

Whether we like it or not, what is happening in our country right now is, indeed, what democracy looks like. It looks like people being rounded up by soldiers wearing masks and being thrown into filthy, make-shift prisons. It looks like 4 million people losing their health insurance this January, myself included. It looks like universities being silenced and political enemies being prosecuted. Small boats in the Caribbean are being blown out of the water without trial or evidence. Just as Plato and Tocqueville predicted, democracy has brought tyranny to our land. Just as Plato said, we are governed by the immoral and the crass. I would list all of the immoral things that our leader and those who follow him are guilty of, but I will not restate the obvious. If you do not know, then God help you, because I cannot. And if you think that I am a democrat, you would be wrong. I am not. This is no longer about two parties; it is a conflict about the very soul of our country. 

Indeed, this is what democracy looks like. This government is acting on the behalf of the American people. More Americans voted for this government than did not. I protest what is happening in our country right now. I speak out against injustice. I will continue to do so, but it is ever present in my mind that my fellow citizens voted for this–voted for this atrocity; voted for our constitution to be torn apart, piece by piece. But much, much worse than that, some groups of people who claim to be republicans are glorifying Adolf Hitler (who was also elected by the way). The same Hitler that our grandparents left their homes, fought, and died fighting against. I cannot think of a worse betrayal of who we are as a people. This is, indeed, what democracy looks like, just before it dies. 

“When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.” Alexis de Tocqueville