These two rather pessimistic articles both brought up points that were scarily relevant to today’s politics. A lot of the signs of a failing democracy, such as increased illiberalism and populism, are certainly manifested in the age of Trump. Not only do polls show an increased lack of respect for democratic institutions, our president actively tries to undermine institutions such as the judiciary court for his own political purposes. There is also a rising distrust in the press, and a lack of value in the freedom of speech and the press. “Fake news” has made certain groups of people willing to compromise their rights in order to obtain what they feel is unbiased information.

However, none of this feels any more historically significant than movements of the past. Populism swept the country in both the 1890s and the 1930s. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court in order to push his New Deal reforms. During times of poverty and danger, people have always been willing to relinquish their rights in exchange for security. This is not a new phenomenon. Foa’s point that “parliamentary procedures long reserved for extraordinary circumstances… are now used with stunning regularity” seems to me not a sign of failing democracy. Legislation is manipulated in new ways all of the time, in order to suit the desires of the incumbent Congress.

While I feel that the warning signs pointed out by both the articles are worth paying attention to, I do not think they are signs that America is doomed. This conclusion is also somewhat based on a gut feeling, knowing my own attitudes on American democracy and the attitudes of the people around me. I think that all of the trends discussed in the articles are negative and should be countered, but I do not find them to be any more alarming that historical trends of the past.

From Civil Wars to heart wrenching battles on foreign ground, from economic depressions to the huge industrial and technological boom, and now, having a political atmosphere so polar it is hard for anyone to agree, it is almost shocking that the American government has lasted as long is it has. However, it still stands a individualized but unified country. For a country built on principles purposefully excluding people if you were not white or male, you can expect there to be some major flaws with how our country runs its machine.  Our government and land have yet to collapse (though maybe teetering), but the people in our country have become very strongly separated.This gridlock of views can create a temporary peril in the nation as one side can never seem to compromise with the other. This causes the population to be entrenched in what they believe and only that. Compromise is lost, compassion is hard to find, and our country stands on a teeter-totter of collapse. One could say, yes, American democracy is doomed. However, Americans (on some level) are living here right now because they feel stable here. If the quality of their lives are still on the positive side of the scale. American democracy would truly start to fail if the people and the majority of the people rose up and revolted; if they caused complete havoc forcing it to collapse and turn to turmoil.

While the prospect of American democracy’s possible decline and potential collapse have gained traction over the last decade, and even more so over the last year, the flaws that are currently metastasizing also reveal that American democracy was never a mythical ideal to begin with, and that its built-in contradictions have plagued it throughout its history. While the structure of the constitution has been vital in reproducing institutions and transferring power, the content of that constitution as originally conceived was fraught with the ramifications of building a liberal democracy while maintaining a violently illiberal slave economy. The original compromises of the constitutional convention, from the bicameral legislature to the three-fifths compromise to the Electoral College, all stem from the necessity to capitulate political power to an inherently undemocratic slaveholding south, and that geographic tension has long been the defining divide of partisan politics (political parties, incidentally, were a feature the founders failed to anticipate). The abolition of slavery was only possible with the total breakdown of democracy in a bloody civil war, the subsequent protection of black rights only possible while the South was militarily occupied and the Confederate elites disenfranchised. Periods of consensus and low polarization inevitably relied on compromises with illiberal policies; the Gilded Age allowed terror to sweep the South, the New Deal Coalition codified welfare for whites only. And our current hyper-polarization stems largely from the rise of the post-Reagan right, a backlash against the open embrace of Civil Rights that led to the first black president being succeeded by a man who equivocates on the evils of white supremacy. The question, then, is if American liberal democracy can ever survive without sacrificing a society that is liberal for all, or if those invested in white supremacy will see it fall before letting that happen.

I think it is interesting to analyze the different ways both Lerner and Tosun analyze and contextualize modernity in this small Turkish village that later becomes part of the city of Ankara. One important aspect when looking at modernity through the eyes of Lerner is to consider the cultural differences and definition of modernity that is present in American society. One flaw with American ideals of modernity and progress is that they are typically viewed in the context of societies becoming more like the United States and not developing to suit the needs of their own people and in the context of their own history. This seems to be illustrated in the vastly different accounts provided by Tosun and Lerner. Tosun has many personal issues with the grocer in his descriptions of the Grocer stands and the ideals for which the grocer stands.Lerner, however, does little to contextualize the time period in which Tosun writes. Lerner just claims that the people of the town were wrong and that they have now seen their mistake, the Grocer is even described as a prophet for the times that were awaiting the villagers. This portrayal of the villagers as seemingly ignorant to the potential progress and the subtle argument that the old ways of thinking were preventing modernity seems to fail to fully contextualize the situation in the town of Balgat. To many readers of Lerner’s argument, the logic of the Grocer’s thinking is clear, however not having ever witnessed the potential for growth and “progress” the people of Balgat reject the Grocer. This was not the villagers’ active attempts to prevent advancement only  a lack of knowledge as to what the thinking of the grocer could amount to; therefore any analysis both the villagers and Tosun must be placed in the context of the time and the conceivable possibilities available to the villagers not from a perspective of a Harper’s readers to whom modernity has clear path and definition.