(Why) You Should Feel This Proud of a Democracy Every Single Day, or, What a Democracy Really Is

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Hi! How’s everyone? Fired up…and…ready to go? Welcome new readers, many thanks old friends, and a Big Thanks to everyone who’s joined us so far. And apologies for my temporary silence – Snowy and I have both had terrible colds.

Today we’re going to talk about…the last few days. They’ve been a political eon. And we’re going to discuss them, in detail, perhaps more painstakingly than you’d like.

But. Let me put the message up front. 

This sense of sudden, explosive enthusiasm and energy? That’s catalyzed American democracy, and breathed new life into it? Hold onto it. That feeling. You’re going to need it. To preserve American democracy.

Think of how transformative the last few days have been. Now understand there are still months yet to go. Are you seeing my point a little bit? 

Preserving this sense of enthusiasm and energy is how to save American democracy. But can Americans do that? I know that sounds a little mean, but we have to be adults right now, and talk about this, because everything depends on it.

So let’s begin.

Biden’s Courage, Kamala’s Moment

Joe Biden should be given credit for having the courage, wisdom, and grace to step down. Because the truth is that it took a great deal indeed of each of those three virtues. To pass the torch, in this uncertain a moment, to a new contender? That’s a risky gamble, and while you might not like to hear that, the fact remains that it is. And we’re going to delve into that.

And of course as soon as he passed the torch, something profound happened.

A mega-wave of unity crested behind Kamala Harris, and elevated her directly to the next nominee for President. Within 24 hours—24 hours—she’d raised a record-shattering, eye-watering amount, plenty of it from small, new donors, not just mega-tycoons or corporations, and more or less formally sewn up the nomination.

All of that provoked a wave of euphoria, and America’s amidst that wave right now. Feels good, doesn’t it? That’s the feeling of power. Of the power of a democracy. Of what democracy is, which is the power of consent, equality, peace, and justice. It’s an incredibly powerful thing to experience.

Life in America feels bad most of the time. Depressing, stressful, hostile. That is because America has been ceasing to be a democracy for many years now, and I don’t mean that in the sense of voting, but in the truer one, a place where the values of peace, justice, equality, and truth are paramount, enacted, expressed, embodied, in even the humblest everyday interactions.

Contrast that ugly feeling with the euphoria of that moment. This, my friends, is what a normal society feels like.

Let me quickly tell you a little story. At 16, I went to Canada, for university. I’d never been before, and I didn’t know what to expect. And the feeling of being in Canada was so different to America, I couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t understand it. I was a desperate, depressed “brown” kid in America, bullied, beaten, abused, hated just for existing. Life was torture. I didn’t know much else, apart from the other collapsed societies I’d grown up in.

But in Canada, I felt these new emotions. And I didn’t understand them. I couldn’t put words to them. I could just…exist…here? And nobody would…attack me? Beat me? Insult me? Hate me? I could…walk down the street? Have friends? I could date girls and just sit at the cafe or the bar…and everyone beside me would be chatting and smiling and laughing? Not angry, upset, or looking at me with hostility, that would soon explode?

It took me a long time to understand it all. But this was happiness. The happiness of a kind of existential level. Just existing, in a happy way. In peace. As an equal. With justice. In the truth of the fragility and mortality of each of us. 

This is what a normal society feels like.

What a Democracy Really Is (And Why It’s Not What Americans Usually Think)

America? It’s different. It’s never really been one, if I’m honest with you. After Canada saved my life, and as the boy became a man, I travelled the world. Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, beyond. And all of those places, too, had this feeling, maybe in different ways, but still, that feeling, of what I slowly came to understand was normal.

At least for a democracy.

You see, we in America misunderstand democracy profoundly. We think of it as a process, or a procedure, or some form of governance. And it is all those things, but it’s also much more than those things, which, at the end of the day, are like calling a human being a mere skeleton. A democracy is a feeling. 

A set of feelings that too many Americans have never had, at least not as a way of life, which is why there’s this euphoria now. But that euphoria should just be normal, as it is, in most other democracies, where life is vastly more peaceful, equal, just, and true, and so sentiments of happiness, contentment, equanimity, and consent, all these imperfect words for just living in a happy and kind way—all those feeling are what are embodied and expressed.

And so life feels good.

This is the greatest gift of all that democracy gives us.

Let this moment teach it to all of us. This moment feels good because democracy feels good. This moment feels good because democracy feels good. This moment feels this powerful because democracy gives us the power to be this happy. This is the gift of democracy. 

And we should live it every single day.

The Stakes for America in the Next 100 Days

I said that it took me a long time to learn that lesson, because in truth, the ideas above were so alien to me, so foreign to me, that I didn’t even have the vocabulary to express them, for years to come. I just knew that in Canada? My life had begun. In a way it never had in America.

And that, too, is sort of the moment America’s at. Let me clarify it now.

The stakes now couldn’t be clearer—and yet they’re still much, much deeper than most Americans think. On one side, you have a figure, Trump, who’s openly praising the “iron fist” of dictators, while vowing to be one, by enacting Project 2025’s template for a totalitarian society.

On the other side, you now have a figure that the left and center can unify around, in the stunning displays of the last few days and hours, and that’s Kamala, of course.

But the stakes aren’t just about “electing Kamala.” 

They’re about America becoming something like a country that begins to join the league of truly modern democracies for the first time. By having, of course, a Black woman leader, who reflects its diverse populace, but in deeper ways than that, which I’ve tried to express to you. A country which is proud to be a democracy, in this existential way, which is to say, one where we can enact equality, truth, justice, and peace, and all of that makes us feel this good, on an everyday basis.

Forget the stuff, for a moment, of the way that I was trained to speak as a budding leader—macroeconomics, social contracts, fiscal space, the jargon of modern governance. All of that is just a means to an end, which is this feeling of democracy, that’s so poignantly finally being felt by Americans as a kind of soul-stunning euphoria.

Those are the stakes. Becoming a country that can feel like that, and that’s how, in truth, modern democracies feel. 

I miss that feeling when I come back to America. Life in America’s good in many ways. Europeans often ask me, mystified. And I reply: it’s easy. Big house, big highway, big car, big store. And they laugh along with me, because there’s a joke hidden in there: that most of them would never trade it, as appealing as all that sounds, for what they have. Which is a life that feels good. 

In France, we call it joie de vivre, in Canada, it’s Canadian “niceness,” in Italy, perhaps, it’s express often as a kind of savoir-faire, in Spain, as a kind of old-world elegance. Doesn’t matter. The point inside the little question, and what’s unsaid in the reply, is that America’s material virtues may be what they are, but as a lived experience, what it offers is still behind the curve of modernity.

The Challenge for America’s Next President

Of course, it’s easier to be happy when you have what Europeans and Canadians do. Public healthcare, excellent transport, and so on. I can take the high speed train from Paris to Barcelona in six hours, and it’s a beautiful trip. Meanwhile, in an example I often use, the Sorbonne is free, while Harvard costs $100k a year.

And all of that brings us to the risk of Kamala’s ascension.

I’m going to be a little critical, so bear with me, and don’t…don’t take it personally. In these moments of euphoria, Americans often just want cheerleaders, but there’s much more at stake right now.

The question’s often asked right now: can Kamala win? But that’s the wrong question.

The right question is: how does American democracy continue to survive and prevail? One answer, which is a simplistic answer, is that Kamala beats Trump. We all know that. But the deeper answer is that American must change. It must become—go a much longer way towards becoming—a genuinely modern democracy, if it’s to cohere and survive. And that means building a society which resembles something much more like a social democracy than the neoliberal one that the Democrats championed for too long.

And it’s here that we’re going to run into issues. Because now we come up against a paradigm shift. Kamala’s been anointed to become the next leader of the party, sure. That’s great. And it’s wonderful, amazing, and beautiful to see this wave of unity—a point I’ll come back to. 

But a leadership transition isn’t always a paradigm shift. 

And in this case, if there’s not one, then the risk goes, well, up. Let me give you an example or two, which are all too easy to foresee. Kamala’s popularity’s soaring with young people and the left. But what if she’s not as much of a budding social democrat as youth want? What if she’s not as supportive of Gaza as the left wants? 

Then we have a process of disillusionment setting in.

This is the part where we have to talk like grown ups. Don’t mistake this for me killing your buzz. I just spent a very long time explaining why I want it to go on. But for that to happen, we have to understand where we are, and that place is this. Americans idealize their leaders. And that’s a mistake. People are people, not just even, but especially, those with great power. If we idealize a figure too much, all that much easier to be disillusioned by them. That risk is particularly right now, because this wave of unity on the center and left also means that people are investing in Kamala a kind of magic, asking her to be whomever she wants them to be.

Meanwhile “Kamala,” as a brand, persona, image, hasn’t been defined on the national stage—and is therefore somewhat blank, which in this case is a good thing, because that leaves the bad guys much, much less to attack her with. But it also means that euphoria can inscribe on this canvas what it will, and we have to temper ourselves, from probably asking too much. An American President, after all, is still an American President. The Democrats are probably going to remain the Democrats, and are hardly likely to form an alliance with, for example, European or even Canadian social democrats.

And yet taking steps in that direction is precisely Kamala’s challenge. Because the truth is that the place America’s in right now is unstable, at a system level. Neoliberalism didn’t work as an “equilibrium solution,” if you like, for a society or a political economy. Social democracy, meanwhile, appears to be just that sort of equilibrium, a place a society can stably rest. And so if the next President doesn’t take steps to move America decisively in that direction, then of course, instability will prevail, and these sorts of contests with fascists and authoritarians will recur, and eventually, they’ll win.

..And You Should Feel it Every Single Day

That’s a lot for now, and LOL, I didn’t even answer the questions I set out to, which are the ones that you probably have: can Kamala win? How will the Republicans try to attack her? How will the next few months play out?

Let me try again tomorrow, with a more prosaic essay that answers some of those very real and urgent concerns. For now, take a moment to reflect with me on this bigger picture. Of what democracy really is. Why it matters. How America got here, by failing to offer that, and plunging, that way, instead, into enmity, chaos, and strife. And what the challenges before it really are.

I don’t mean to leave you in a place that has no practical relevance, so let me end where I started.

Hold onto this feeling.

This is what democracy is. Really is.

You’re going to need that enthusiasm and energy to win, true.

But there is a deeper lesson in this beautiful moment, too.

You should feel it every single day.

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