Democracy’s Resiliency

One of the pressing questions of our time, a question that concerned Eric Voegelin during his entire life, is that of the future of democracy. Let us dispense with the sophistry of “this is a republic, not a democracy.” Russia is a republic. China is a republic. North Korea is a republic. The “No True Scotsman” fallacy doesn’t hold when one says, “they’re not a real republic.” What makes the American republic different from Russia, China, and North Korea? We all know it’s the democratic process of voting, representation, and reform within our electoral and governing process. Additionally, even observers like Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the American republic as functioning like a democracy. In our rhetoric, democracy and republic are synonymous as systems of representative political governance.

The 2026 Midterm election is over, and the Democrats have won an impressive victory. Elections come and go. It’s likely that the scale of this victory, impressive as it is, though smaller than some prior Midterm elections of the past couple of generations, will likely fade in due time. What cannot fade is the resiliency of American democracy.

In his New Science of Politics, Voegelin noted the exceptionalism of American character and democratic spirit as to why it was likely that America—and therefore the “West”—would prevail in the struggle against Soviet communism. Americans are a fickle, restless, and progressive people. Our sights are always forward, as Walt Whitman noted in his preface to Leaves of Grass. All the talk of democratic backsliding should be considered hyperbolic. It’s always democratic backsliding when the other side wins and our side loses. But what if our side is democracy itself, secular and pluralistic modernity, and the open society? That won, and thank God it did.

Politics goes on, but the task of building a fairer, freer, and more equal society remains the task of every American citizen. There is hope. The resiliency of hope is not easily defeated. This, too, is something that Voegelin saw within the American people and its political traditions: progressive hope and conservative caution working together. The incoming composition of Congress, the forthcoming political reality of state government, and the general tenor of the 2026 election is pushing us back to the very things Voegelin saw that made America unique and a beacon of hope against fascism, communism, and any foreseeable totalitarian ideology.

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