Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville, an aristocrat and liberal, left for America at the time of the European upheaval of 1830. Worried about finding a moderate and renovating political formula that would mitigate the excesses of revolutionary radicalism and overcome the immobility of the restorers, he disembarked in New York, traveled to Canada and the Great Lakes and toured the border territories and the South of the United States.

Although the purpose of his trip was to study the prison system of the new country, he spoke with jurists, farmers and entrepreneurs and found in their words a different way of understanding progress and politics based on the equality of all of them before the law, on the balances of a dynamic and innovative constitutional system, and on the commitment of Americans to the young democracy, in which, since Andrew Jackson's presidency, workers could vote. Upon his return, he published Democracy in America in 1835, to explain to the old continent that the idea of a society of free and equal citizens before the law was not only desirable, but from then on it was definitely a reality. 

After a meticulous, slow and transparent vote count, Joe Biden, the moderate and liberal candidate of the Democratic Party, of working class and non-aristocratic origin, has won the majority in the state of Pennsylvania and celebrates the victory. When the rest of the states finish counting the votes, and despite some additional complaints and recounts as legitimately contemplated by the laws of democracy, Biden will become the forty-sixth president of the United States. In an election that has revealed the polarization of American society. But also the democratic sense of the great majority of the voters who have known how to adapt to the conditions of the pandemic and have exercised their right to elect their representatives in an orderly manner in a massive participation. The great winner of these historic elections of 2020 has been democracy. 

President Donald Trump, a victim of his own provocative and non-institutional personality, has closed the last days of a mandate that until the arrival of the coronavirus had managed to move forward thanks to the solvency of the economic figures and his ability to assimilate new trends in foreign policy. But his message to make America great by placing it as the only purpose and without the traditional allies; his attempts to weaken the credibility of some institutions and constitutional principles when they were not favorable to him and his disastrous management of the pandemic, have ended up mobilizing Americans who, over 70 million, have said no to populism and yes to liberal democracy.

Many other millions of voters, as well as Republican leaders, the media and international public opinion have clearly manifested themselves in favor of respect for the constitutional order, legitimacy and laws that, since the time of Tocqueville, represent the best exponent of American leadership in the world. 
Joe Biden has spoken the first conciliatory words to run for president of all Americans. But in his inauguration in front of the Capitol in January, the Democratic leader and first vice president Kamala Harris, will have to consider that the vast majority of citizens in the United States, reject violence between minorities, respect the symbols and constitutional principles, share the same democratic society although they have different ideological orientations and reject equally irrational populist proposals and radical progressive ideas as the Democratic Party primaries showed.

Radical activists, who attempted during the pre-campaign to topple even the statue of President Jackson, the champion of the workers' vote in 1830, may have a place as citizens in the open society announced by Joe Biden, but not in a liberal administration that is challenged to revive the economy and reorient international society toward a freer, more inclusive and democratic horizon.
The late John MaCain, the 2008 Republican candidate, acknowledged his defeat to Barack Obama in a legitimate and elegant way. He shared with Joe Biden countless moments in the U.S. Senate to sign from the political center agreements that would strengthen the values of the free world and American interests. The two great parties, Democrats and Republicans, have the responsibility to find the path of institutional balance, reduction of uncertainty and polarization, and economic progress.

"The big parties transform society, the small parties shake it up. They get exalted and irritated for no reason. Their language is violent, but their walk is timid and uncertain. The means they employ are miserable, like the very goal they set for themselves," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville upon returning from America. So that Europe would know well who were then and now the enemies of freedom.