What Alexis de Tocqueville would tell us today about the media
French Aristocrat Alexis De Tocqueville wrote the seminal and oft-quoted masterpiece “Democracy in America” in 1835. De Tocqueville had travelled to America in 1831 to study the American Prison system and was able to make a multitude of observations. America had grown fourfold in population (3 million to 12 million) in the short period between the Revolution and 1831, and the new Republic was a flourishing and successful democracy. De Tocqueville wrote about what he thought made democracy work in America. De Tocqueville wrote about the importance of a free press as absolutely necessary for any functioning democracy. It is in the arena of media that de Tocqueville would likely offer his greatest warning for America today.
In his mind, a free press in America was directly tied to the political value of equality. The first newspaper he read upon arriving in America was scathing in its criticism of the newly elected president, Andrew Jackson. The unfettered ability to offer such criticism was unique. De Tocqueville noted: “But in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people ostensibly prevails, the censorship of the press is not only dangerous, but it is absurd. When the right of every citizen to co-operate in the government of society is acknowledged, every citizen must be presumed to (have access to the different viewpoints to come to truth). The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people.”
What impressed de Tocqueville most about the US press was its decentralization and independence. That free media environment ensured no centralized power could control the flow of information as he had seen in France. According to De Tocqueville: “Americans have established no central control over the expression of opinion…it is owing to the laws of the Union that there are no licenses to be granted to printers, no securities demanded from editors as in France, and no stamp duty as in France and formerly in England. The consequence of this is that nothing is easier than to set up a newspaper…This decentralization prevented control by any state or national power, and habituated Americans to assess varying sources of information and discriminate among those sources to search for truth.”
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Unfortunately, the modern US media environment has become much closer to the European nations De Tocqueville lambasted. In much of Europe of the 1830s, nations controlled by Aristocratic elite decision-makers, centralized the media. In modern America, media and the big tech elite act as the Aristocratic controlling element of 1830s Europe. The progressive viewpoints of media and big tech executives have aligned with the progressive political elite and its goal of centralizing information.
This phenomenon can be seen in the most recent national stories: The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, promotion of the discredited Steele Dossier Russian Collusion story, suppression of the credible Wuhan lab leak story, and many more. The examples are endless. “Citizen journalists” with blogs, and the small number of conservative media outlets can report the alternative viewpoint. However, mainstream media and big tech have the power and influence to smear and discredit those sources. They now openly espouse censorship of conservative news, using the alleged danger of “extremism” and “disinformation” from the political right as an excuse. Those same Progressives generally seek to diminish the influence of Christianity, further eroding our democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville would likely tell Americans today that democracy in America is under assault, and its survival is flimsy if the media’s ever-growing control over our news continues. He would tell us that the people of America, not media and big tech progressive elites, must rule. That can only happen if the press is again totally free. We trust in God above all else, and know that he will ultimately guide democracy in America through the people.
Bill Connor, a retired Army Infantry colonel, author and Orangeburg attorney, has deployed multiple times to the Middle East. Connor was the senior U.S. military adviser to Afghan forces in Helmand Province, where he received the Bronze Star. A Citadel graduate with a JD from USC, he is also a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Army War College, earning his master of strategic studies. He is the author of the book Articles from War.
