Tocqueville's Democracy in America and the Administrative State

In this lecture, we explore Tocqueville's Democracy in America, what he means by democracy, and how he correctly foresaw the danger and rise of the administrative state and imperial presidency as dangers to American democracy.

0:00-5:52 - Tocqueville in America
5:52-13:55 - Democracy in America
13:55-23:02 - Danger of Political Centralism
23:02-29:08 - Tocqueville Today
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is a political philosopher, literary critic, and classicist. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, politics, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous publications in the English-speaking world. He is the author of Finding Arcadia (2023), The Odyssey of Love (2021), and the Politics of Plato (2020); he has also contributed to The College Lecture Today (2019) and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters (2022).
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[matthewgaulke]

I remember doing a road trip a few years ago from Minneapolis to Portland and I thought I'd get exposed to a lot of new culture but nope. You could be in any gas station and all the same products were there. Every town had all the same mega corporation stores. The music was the same everywhere. Restaurant food all tasted like it came off the same truck. They are always blabbing on about diversity but all I see is an attempt to unite us all under this same consumeristict culture. You think you can escape it getting out of the cities but nope. You got all the same stuff out in the small towns. Mt. Dew, rainbow flags in the public libraries, the same movies playing at the theater, McDonald's, and poorly manufactured clothes.