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The scenes of the mobs entering and occupying the Capitol building make us all wonder.  How could this possibly be happening? How could that symbol of order and progress, of Enlightenment optimism, that temple of social and political progress, be flooded with anarchists, onlookers, domestic terrorists, insurgents, thugs and vandals? How could this happen? A common response is to say that democracy had broken down, but that is an error. 

 The explainers  can say all they want, but the January riots are not due to “the breakdown of democracy.” Quite the reverse. They are the manifestations of democracy. They are not anti-democratic, but forcefully democratic, the contemporary workings out of democratic presumptions and presuppositions. They  are not entirely due to that strange president of the hour, Donald Trump, who, whatever good he may have accomplished or moved others to accomplish,  has instigated all kinds of madness and mayhem. They are not entirely due to the intentional or spontaneous behavior of  individuals who just like excitement and are attracted to noisy crowds and surging groups of leaderless people. They were not birthed in the  Minneapolis George Floyd gatherings of May, 2020. In fact, useful explanations are not found in the platitudes and slogans of the day at all, for the riots are not in spite of democracy, but  because of democracy.  

The January madness, for instance, is not due to something going wrong in the system of democratic premises and principles, but, ironically, to the actual  working out of  democratic premises and principles, and they are not new on the scene but have roots that stretch back long ago, roots that may be seen in our own revolutionary beginnings as we rebelled against English rule. Our own country’s beginnings   were, in fact, in many ways similar to January 2020. Protests, gunfire, soldiers—all kinds of actions meant to get rid of the English.   More organized then, true, but a common enemy then—the English monarchy.

There was another big push for democratic rule  in the war of 1812. Never a chance of invading Parliament, that was too far away, but  British buildings in America were burned and damaged before the English forces retreated and the United States democracy went on, stronger and stronger or weaker and weaker or both depending on your assumptions.

The conventional vision of democratic progress is that democracies are getting better and better. After all, people are naturally good, and so they will behave better and better. This  is the Enlightenment  world view, the view that, to some degree at least, inspired the French Revolution. That is the view of Thomas Paine who powerfully influenced the American Revolution. Government, thought Paine, was at best a necessary evil. Therefore, the less government, the better, and by getting rid of the English government, as was the intent of the American revolution, there would be less government, and American democracy would flourish. Not all agreed with Paine’s cheerful optimism, but many did, and many still do.

The optimistic view is strong in this country, especially after we won two world wars and have flourished since. Think of the present world of public entertainment, of the songs and plays, the movies, today the electronic games, the television shows (those that are not about crime and punishment). Paine would be delighted. But all of that is on the surface. The currents underneath move a little differently.