Anne Applebaum: The Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/america-democracy-autocracy/684335/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/bhnUA

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Within weeks of their publication in July 1776, those words spread around the world. In August, a London newspaper reprinted the Declaration of Independence in full. Edinburgh followed. Soon after that, it appeared in Madrid, Leiden, Vienna, and Copenhagen.

Before long, others drew on the text in more substantial ways. Thomas Jefferson himself helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, issued by French revolutionaries in 1789. The Haitian Declaration of Independence, of 1804, drew on both the American and French precedents, calling for the construction of an “empire of liberty in the country which has given us birth.” In subsequent decades, declarations of independence were issued by Greece, Liberia (the author had been born in Virginia), and a host of new Latin American nations. In 1918, Thomáš Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, signed a Declaration of Common Aims of the Independent Mid-European Nations at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, using the Founders’ inkwell.

On that occasion, a replica of the Liberty Bell was rung, not because any American president or official had asked for it to ring but because Masaryk had been inspired by the story of the American founding. He evoked the Declaration not because of any pressure applied by U.S. foreign policy, but because of Jefferson’s words and what they signify. Since 1776, Americans have promoted democracy just by existing. Human rights and the rule of law are in our founding documents. The dream of separation from a colonial empire is built into them too. Our aspirations have always inspired others, even when we did not live up to them ourselves.

In the 20th century, we moved from simply modeling democratic ideals to spreading or promoting them as a matter of policy. We did so in part because the language of democracy is in our DNA, and when we are confronted by autocrats and despots, we use it. Woodrow Wilson, when arguing for entry into the First World War, said America should advocate the “principles of peace and justice” in opposition to “selfish and autocratic power.” In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to America as an “arsenal of democracy” determined to aid British allies against the Nazis: “No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination.”

*snip*

[struggle4progress]

1. Yeah, yeah ... Y'know the beacon hasn't always been equally lit

for everybody; and so far as it's been lit, it's been a constant struggle

Nostalgic sentimentality for a glorious mythic past is self-indulgent nonsense

It now falls to us to do some of the hard work and heavy lifting

With luck and persistence we'll get enough right to pass something on

[ITAL]

2. The article even said it wasn't equally lit

Last edited Wed Oct 15, 2025, 12:22 AM - Edit history (1)

That doesn't mean we haven't inspired the world with our words and deeds for nearly 250 years. Just because we ourselves haven't always lived up to what we espouse doesn't mean other countries didn't look to us as a example, because they did.

[struggle4progress]

3. Fair enough. We still have heavy lifting ahead now

[Grins]

4. The British laughed at the Declaration.

At the contradictions. The hypocrisy. In particular:

“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?" - Dr. Samuel Johnson.

[Hekate]

5. Excellent. TY