Revisiting Tocqueville’s Views of America

CHASING THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

A Journey in Tocqueville’s Footsteps Through Contemporary America

By David Cohen

Picador USA

312 pages; $24

When French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States in 1831, he emerged with his classic work “Democracy in America,” in which he portrayed the young country as a society shaped by its “equality of conditions.” Now, in a book written 170 years later, “Chasing the Red, White, and Blue: A Journey in Tocqueville’s Footsteps Through Contemporary America,” journalist David Cohen challenges some of his conclusions.

Cohen, an inquisitive foreign observer of the United States--he’s British and South African--was curious: How would Tocqueville’s observations stand up at the turn of a new millennium? He decided to trace Tocqueville’s route: to New York, the Midwest, the South and Washington, D.C., but also added a stop in trendsetting California, not part of the country in Tocqueville’s day.

Cohen’s book is a lively, easy-to-read piece of analytical journalism, packed with anecdotes and statistics as well as quotations from “Democracy in America” and Tocqueville’s other writings.

In each chapter, he takes up a theme raised by Tocqueville--religious observance, materialism, opportunity--and ties it to the region he’s visiting. Throughout, he hammers away at the theme of social inequity, arguing that the United States is a country with a growing gulf between its haves and have-nots.

“But what if inequality of conditions--and not equality of conditions--has become the defining ‘creative element’ of contemporary American society?” Cohen asks, citing statistics that show increasing wealth among the country’s rich and increasing difficulties for the poor.

Cohen also set out to determine whether Americans still have the compassion that Tocqueville found in his travels. He found it, but only after reaching the country’s nooks and crannies. “Maybe the compassionate heart and egalitarian society that Tocqueville described is alive and well, but you have to travel to the individual cities and states--to the micro-nation--to find it,” he writes.

Cohen illustrates his quest with stories about the people he meets along the way--from the New York prison guard who encounters many old neighbors among his wards, to the cancer-stricken woman from Texas who relies on her religious faith to keep going, to the philosophical owner of a supermarket chain in the Ohio River Valley who puzzles over the nature of American compassion. These interactions are cast against the backdrop of the 2000 presidential campaign, featuring George W. Bush’s pitch for “compassionate conservatism.”

Multiculturalism is one of Cohen’s dominant themes, and he ties it in to his overall search. He stresses how diverse the American population is today compared with its 1830s counterpart. In fact, on arrival in the United States, he finds his portable radio tuned to the thumping beat of a Latino station in New York.

In the chapter on California, he discusses Latino immigrant families and their roles in the state’s economy--from migrant workers to high-tech millionaires.

And a topic through much of the book is the legacy of slavery--a subject that clashes sharply with Tocqueville’s 19th century concept of an egalitarian society--and its impact today on African Americans and the country as a whole.

Unfortunately for Cohen, two of his chapters, on New York City and Silicon Valley, have been overtaken by events since his visits, rendering them historical rather than contemporary descriptions. Cohen describes a New York humming with the vitality of moneymaking, almost bursting with excitement as the market booms.

And Cohen’s California sojourn focuses in large part on Silicon Valley, which he paints as the new American frontier, also spiraling upward in an almost uncontrollable frenzy as its inhabitants seek dotcom fortunes. In addition, his chapter on Washington, D.C., which focuses on lobbyists, refers to the federal budget surplus, now melted away.

These portrayals seem almost poignant in the wake of Sept. 11, with the downturn in the economy and the troubles facing the technology industry. But Cohen succeeds in capturing the ethos of the country as it sped into the new century.

And what of his quest to search for the country’s compassionate heart? In the end, Cohen seems to find a mixed picture. He sees a shift away from Tocqueville’s egalitarian society. “It has become harder and harder to grasp that if you win big, but those around you lose big, you ultimately lose too,” Cohen writes.

Yet he ends on a note of hope, discussing the American Dream with a toll collector at New York’s George Washington Bridge--a man nicknamed “First Class,” who thinks his own American Dream is “just around the corner”--a fitting conclusion for a book that blends exuberance with a cautionary note.