MYTH AND VOTERS OF AMERICAN DEMOCARCY

Democracy” has taken different forms throughout history. In ancient Athens, it was a closed, self-governing community of citizens; in 1790s France, it involved an expansive assertion of popular sovereignty via armed uprisings. For many Americans, democracy suggests self-reliant individuals living under a limited government; for 19th-century European social democrats, it entailed a struggle for social and economic justice that expanded the role of government. After World War II, democracy emerged as a universal aspiration, memorialized in Article 21 of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” Virtually every political regime today claims to embody some form of democracy — and its diverse proponents, and its critics, have propagated many myths about it