You didn’t explain jack, you just made a bald assertion and didn’t back it up. And one explanation? You have very little patience at all.
Like I give a shit what you do or don’t consider a “cheap shot”
You keep saying this particular phrase is some fixed expression that isn’t used (by Americans) in a more general sense. Still got to see any backing for that. Not disposed to taking one American’s word on what a political term of Art means - just look at Liberal…
You can stick that logic where Guin keeps her cactus. I responded to the content of your post, and asked for explanation, the very opposite of sanctimony. I started with an admittedly non-election-related example, but you’re a hopeless naif if you think the larger point wasn’t on target - even with your narrower view of “American Experiment”, there has been plenty of election-related violence in America’ s past.
I hesitate getting involved in this, but what is America but our system of government? That’s the thing that bound us together in the beginning, and it’s what binds us today. Our system of government is synonymous with ourselves, and thus ‘The American Experiment’ is most definitely a phrase that means ‘The United States of America,’ though it refers not to the geography but to the society itself.
In other words, ‘The American Experiment’ is not external to us, but in fact springs forth from us as we commit and work towards fair and representative governance of ourselves and our neighbors. The Experiment is E Plebnista, it is not amber waves of grain or purple mountain majesties (if it were those things, you’d be right).
I think we’re all agree that if the firebombing, and this subsequent thread, allows even one perpetually angry foreigner to remind even one American that there’s nothing special about his big-shot Mr. Fancy Pants country that thinks it’s so big, it will all have been worth it.
Naah, it’s only really worth it when pointing out to Americans that American politics has often been violent provokes a completely pavlovian jingoistic response. Somehow the non-American-ness of critical posters becomes an issue as soon as the slightest disagreement is broached.
That drooling dog in the corner? That’s the Defensive American. Fuck, yeah!
You know, I’ve been looking and I can’t find an actual quote from de Tocqueville that uses the phrasing. There’s the false quote attributed to him (amongst others) about the people voting themselves into emptying the treasury, but that’s all I can find.
He does say this:
I can find both Washington and Jefferson referring to the new nation or its government as “[an/this] experiment”, but not that precise phrasing.
No, I don’t think it did - the US continued to hold elections throughout the war, and while detractors called Lincoln a dictator, I’ve never seen any credible evidence that he considered trying to abolish elections and turn the US to another government form. The Confederacy similarly kept holding elections, and their unwillingness to centralize government actually hampered their war effort significantly. Sure, they didn’t let slaves vote, but the original “American Experiment” didn’t either. I can’t think of any plausible end to the Civil War that would result in America abandoning elected government, so I don’t think it was especially close.
I think the idea on why the Civil War threatened the democratic(ish) experiment is that if the Confederates could pick up their marbles and go home when the federal elections didn’t go the way they wanted, what’s to stop the same thing happening at the next levels down (counties seceding from a state, etc.) so that nothing controversial could be decided by election for fear of further disintegration/balkanization.
As was said, the experiment is a peaceful transfer of power after an election. While violence or refusing to vacate office are the usual opposites of peaceful-transfer (“I’m/He’s still President, damn the election!”), so is leaving the body politic to create your own (“He’s not our president, damn the election!”).