If we fully register and engage with Tocqueville’s establishment of “intermediary associations” playing an important role in the sustainment of liberal democracies, and look at these mechanisms’ applicability in today’s epoch of democracy in America, then yes, democracy’s survival is a cause for concern. Tocqueville’s definition of informal mechanisms as entities that, “are the groups in between the government and the family that exist as arbiters and regulators of society” (Illing 7), are, in a more basic understanding, associative groups that aren’t political. By this token, Tocqueville believes that these associations carry just as much importance as other political organizations because they are a cohort of people working to mediate and flex their preferences on the government but whom are separate from the government. Zakaria and Illing, however, dually note that these intermediaries of society are dwindling in the face of American liberal democracy. Essentially, political parties have assumed greater importance over non-political associations and have become entities that operate in more selfish and monetarily focused ways— whom Zakaria refers to as ‘entrepreneurs’ in politics. Moreover, Zakaria points out that liberal democracy is sustained by these waning non-political associations, and because these associations are also the cultural basis for liberal democracy, democracy is imperiled. An interesting metaphor Zakaria uses to describe liberal democracy is its comparison to a highway exit and how it is one of many, meaning that liberal democracy, although the favored implementation of democracy, is not a likely outcome. What we have seen in the Trump era are unprecedented political tactics that appeal to raw populism. Trump’s politics create a system that takes the passions of voters and works to implement those passions, but defies democratic principles because there is no deliberation or consideration of what others want— a major peril to democracy and society as a whole. In Foa and Monk’s piece, they use empirical data to support how many Americans are dissatisfied with American liberal democracy in the presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress to be at record low levels. So low that 1 in 15 Americans likened the idea of military rule in the United States over a democracy, and has since grown to be 1 in 6. This is an alarming statistic considering that 1/6 of the American public is so dissatisfied with the best form of democracy by many accounts. My fear is that as American political institutions grow increasing polarized, as trends suggest, then the disillusionment with liberal democracy will turn into greater skepticism from the American public, therefore endangering the future of democracy as an ideology.

-Ella Smit