In the long arc of human history, the modern democratic era is a mere blip.
Humans first began residing in city-like agricultural settlements about 10,000 years ago. The American and French revolutions, widely seen as the dawn of the democratic age, took place less than 250 years ago. For most of subsequent history, so-called “democracies” didn’t meet minimal modern standards — most notably by restricting the franchise to white, property-owning men.
Democracy as we know it — a system formally premised on equal citizenship for everyone — is really a 20th-century invention. The degree to which it has become the consensus gold standard for human governance, both in the United States and around the world, is nothing short of miraculous.
This development is not just a function of democracy’s military victories or constitutional innovations. It has depended fundamentally on the global rise of a democratic culture — a set of ideas, beliefs, and expectations centering on the notion that democracy is the only just and feasible way to run a society.
Democracy has grown and matured by turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy: It persists because everyone in a society believes it should and will exist. If democratic culture dims, democracy’s prospects dim with it.
The United States, the first country to claim the mantle of democracy in the modern era, has long had an exceptionally strong democratic culture. Belief in democratic ideals, liberal rights, and the basics of constitutional government are so fundamental to American identity that they’ve been collectively described as the country’s “civil religion.”
Yet today, America’s vaunted democratic culture is withering before our eyes. American democracy, once seemingly secure, is now in so much trouble that 75 percent of Americans believe that “the future of American democracy is at risk in the 2024 presidential election,” according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute and…
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