It’s not a question for today. The only reason I raise it now is because there are plenty of reasons to question the quality of liberal democracy found in the United States.
The pressure groups are immensely powerful. The constitution imposes boundaries upon the voters that many find unacceptable.
As the Democratic Society blog notes, free (as in shopping) and political liberties are not the same thing – and one could argue that the Washington Consensus has rolled back the forward march of liberal democracy in some ways.
This has been done either by policies that pursue public choice models of government at the expense of ones in which elected representatives determine policy, or, as some critics would have it, by a ham-fisted attempt to impose democratic values abroad.
As I say, questions for another day, because today is the day that the democracy of one nation has the world almost sick with excitement. It’s a day for positivity. It’s the day that everyone wins.
Today is a good day, and I hope we all rememeber it for a long time.
