Lange: Using terms like 'Christian Nationalist' avoids the real issue

Alexis de Tocqueville came to America from France in 1831. As a political philosopher from a country where politics were murderous, he was interested in knowing what makes America different. In 1835, he published “Democracy in America.”

Democracy in France had devolved into the “tyranny of the majority,” wherein “two wolves and a sheep voted on what’s for dinner.” The French Revolution began with a hostile takeover of the church by the state. It led to one faction killing another for nearly a quarter of a century. By the time the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815, hundreds of thousands of French citizens and 3 million Europeans had been slaughtered.