So the latest troubling sighting is efforts to turn ‘democracy’ into a suspect word. While it may seem loopy to raise this as a concern, ‘liberal’ was not all that long ago seen in the US as a positive, or at worst, descriptive term.
Now liberal is so discredited that The Position Formerly Known As Liberal has either crept with its tail between its legs to the center, but still maintains that it is liberal, or is now called ‘progressive’, but that too is rapidly losing positive brand association, since pretty much everyone has figured out that Progressive = The Position Formerly Known As Liberal. So don’t kid yourself that cherished concepts like democracy are immune to reimaging.
Alexander Hamilton:
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people.
“The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact.
“The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the Second….
“Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy…. It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan.”