"I take my title from the writings of Henry and Brooks Adams. They found American democracy in process of degradation more than a century ago. The decay of the American Presidency from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant, Henry Adams remarked, refuted altogether Darwin's theory of evolution. To a similar thesis I shall return presently."
"But first, indulge me in some observations concerning the present condition of what is called "democracy" near the close of the 20th century. We are informed by certain voices that soon all the world will be democratic. But whether or not, the American mode of democratic government prevails, the abstract ideology called democratism that any government which has obtained a majority of votes be received as "democratic." Enthusiasts for unrestricted democracy presumably forget that Adolph Hitler, too, was democratically elected and sustained by popular plebiscites. Alexis de Tocqueville warned his contemporaries against ... "democratic despotism," --- 20th century writers discuss "totalist democracy."