The choice of democracy over autocracy is a conscious decision. I do not think that this is an unsettled debate.
In my limited reading, the Socrateses, the Platos, the Aristotles of the ancient era made their debates for democracy consciously. I think the students of the Renaissance made their debates for enlightenment over barbarism consciously and tried to restore democracy.
All their shortcomings notwithstanding, America's drafters of constitutional democracy were the students of Renaissance who consciously wrote it in order to establish three branches of government with checks and balances. There are historical accounts that the "pursuit of happiness" phrase in the U.S. Constitution was borrowed from Classical Civilization by Thomas Jefferson.
I do not think that it is far from the truth if we argue that democracy is a universal uniter of conscious minds.
As limited as my reading of history may be, I listened with a consciousness of democracy to the speech of Vice President Kamala Harris on January 6th, 2022. As I kept hearing it, I felt as if Socrates was speaking, as if Socrates was standing on the TV screen in front of me. I wished that Thomas Jefferson rose from his grave and listened to her speech like the rest of us.
I also remembered that this Vice President is the candidate who once said during a debate: "That little girl was me." I could only imagine what young and upcoming people like her had to endure in their own country or one that they consider their own country. She has risen to become a legend in her own right.
So, I have no moral ground to criticize her.
However, for the love of democracy, I respectfully disagree with one point in her speech. If I am not mistaken, she has characterized American democracy as the oldest and the greatest. My only question is if it is the oldest.
I do not think so. If it were qualified to be the oldest constitutional democracy, I do not know if I have any point of disagreement. I am also sure that as a political leadership member of an American administration, she has the duty and responsibility to advocate for American leadership.
Nonetheless, if democratic values parsed with monarchical relics made America, I would argue that democracy, as written in its constitution, supersedes American leadership. Even if America meted against her the experience of that little girl in America, American democracy has made her a legend.
However much it has been exclusionist, democracy has been moving America, the country that looked in the last several years to be at the crossroads of Democracy and Autocracy.
The road of Democracy is a road that is taken consciously. The road of Autocracy is a road that is taken organically. At least, this is my intuitive understanding of them.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump were at the crossroads of Democracy and Autocracy when they were campaigning for the 2020 Presidential election. Based on my limited reading and listening, Joe Biden consciously took the Democracy road and Donald Trump organically took the Autocracy road. I do not think that either one of them thinks that he took the wrong road.
As much as many of us consciously think that autocracy is untenable and unsustainable, I wouldn't fail to understand the residual presence of organic autocracy. Humanity has had organic experiences over the ages that have gone through paradigm shifts from matriarchal to patriarchal to democratic societies.
Even as these paradigm shifts progressed over the ages, it appears to me that the residual organic tendencies toward autocracy not only couldn't burst out to the realm of conscious democratic values, but they also do not think that it is not right to stay within their organic shells.
Some people have suggested that what led Donald Trump to enter the Presidential race in 2015 was an American comedian's comedy line as a joke. In retrospect, I heard it as a conscious expression in a comedy line. His decision to enter the race could be an organic reaction even though the comedy line was a conscious expression.
Watching the riots of January 6th, 2021, instead of calling for it to stop at a moment's notice is not a joke anymore, starting from the moment of that failure. As many have said, it was an affront to democracy. I do not think that in his sphere of organic autocracy, he thinks that he was at fault watching it unfold for a long time for a riot. It was a long time to bring darkness on what the late Ronald Reagan called a shining city on a hill.
What rationalization can there be for such organic autocracy that is indifferent to democratic expressions by the majority of the voters and the yearning for democracy by so many people around the world?
Most definitely, he isn't alone in the realm of organic autocracy or who chooses to stay there instead of stepping out to the realm of conscious democracy, however untenable and unsustainable that transient comfort zone may be. Evidently, there are many in America within that realm.
Moreover, what makes this organically autocratic tendency qualitatively different from the urge to establish a clandestine five-eyed watcher, which includes America, over the globe without telling the latter, much less get its consent? That is very much longer than how long Donald Trump led America. It has been the watcher much longer than how long Donald Trump was watching from America's White House the riots of January 6th, 2021.
One of Aristotle's philosophical expressions was to characterize man as a rational animal. Is this not one of the philosophical foundations that made democracy function starting in ancient times even as other tendencies tested it from time to time before it finds its way back? Even as democracy finds its way back, aren't some people still living in the world that Aristotle tried to pull out into a functional political consciousness using his philosophical expression?
So, for the love of democracy that made Vice President Kamala Harris a legend in her own right and to the extent that the Socrateses, the Platos, the Aristotles, and others of the ancient world that brought about Classical Civilization and other civilizations predate American democracy, I respectfully disagree that American democracy is the oldest democracy.