Roger Kimball: “Modern readers who first encounter Democracy in America are almost always amazed by Tocqueville’s contemporaneity, his relevance to America now. One example: although the stability of American democracy means that elections present ‘no real danger,’ Tocqueville notes that one ‘can still consider the election of the president as a period of national crisis.’

“‘Long before the appointed moment arrives, the election becomes the greatest and so to speak sole business preoccupying minds. The factions at that time redouble their ardor; in that moment all the factitious passion that the imagination can create in a happy and tranquil country become agitated in broad daylight. . . . The entire nation falls into a feverish state; the election is then the daily text of the public papers, the subject of particular conversations, the goal of all reasoning, the object of all thoughts, the sole interest of the present.’

“And then? ‘As soon as fortune has pronounced . . . this ardor is dissipated, everything becomes calm, and the river, one moment overflowed, returns peacefully to its bed.’”