2026-06-13
50 分钟The Economist.
This weekend, America starts celebrations for a big birthday.
And no, I'm not talking about cage fighting on the White House lawn in honor of President Trump's 80th,
but 250 years since the founding of the United States.
When Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831, he saw a new kind of society.
Not just a country, but an idea that would change the world.
His writing on America's experiment in liberal democracy made him a founder of modern political science,
the forebear of the foreign correspondent and patient zero for a two-century swoon over America.
But is America's love affair with liberal democracy finally losing its luster?
I'm Rosie Bloor, and for the next three weeks,
The Weeknd Intelligence is taking a break while we bring you a brand new series from Economist Podcasts.
It's a road trip around America's past, present and future.
Our US editor John Priddo follows in the footsteps of Tocqueville to ask what's happened
to American democracy and how much of what was so inspiring in the 1830s still remains.
We'll be publishing episodes every Saturday for the next three weeks and the weekend intelligence will be back in July
when we'll be exploring the worlds of human enhancement, homeschooling and falling in love with an avatar.
But now, here's Episode 1. It's what they stand for because even if you've never been to New York,
you felt its pull.
Maybe even imagined yourself inside it, like Ross and Rachel, Spider-Man or Sinatra.
Approaching it via the water, it feels like a great and powerful civilization is opening its arms out to you.