One of my favorite podcasts is the BBC
Americana show, a British perspective on American culture, society, history and politics. I love it. And I was so disappointed this week when they were talking about
Alexis de Tocqueville, walking along the streets of Washington DC, asking people what they thought of this guy, who so shaped our view of ourselves, and the world's view of America. The original road-tripper. He did the American Journey of Discovery a century before
Jack Kerouac. I'm no expert on de Tocqueville. I believe I read
Democracy in America in school, or at least skimmed the Cliffs Notes, and I don't expect for people to be able to quote him. I don't even expect for everybody to know who he was. But for pete's sake...on the streets of our capital, where people are running our country, and are supposedly smart,
nobody knew his name. One guy was even like, "why don't you ask me about politics?"
Listen, dumb*ss, asking about de Tocqueville is asking about politics.
Reading his quotes on religion that are excerpted on Wikipedia makes me think that the Tea Party folks could do with copies of Democracy in America sent to them. Oh, yeah, he's French, so they probably wouldn't read it anyway.
I'm so seriously disappointed.
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