The many analyses of the 2012 election results are not saying
much about what may have been the central and fundamental
problem: democracy. Notice that I do not say a democratic
republic—that was the nature of the American political order as
fashioned by our Founding Fathers—but a democracy. A generation
ago, Martin Diamond, Winston Mills Fisk, and Herbert Garfinkle
explained the difference. A democratic republic features
majority rule, to be sure, but through representative
institutions (this is its democratic aspect). Its ruling
principle, then, is not “power to the people.” It is republican
in the sense of being a constitutional regime that is governed
by the rule of law and protects minority rights, and because it
is characterized by restraint, sobriety, competence, and
liberty. The culture of the Founding Era in America, upon which
our democratic republic was erected (politics always springs
from culture), made these qualities possible. It was a time of
strong morality (nowhere stronger than in sexual ma