Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville: “Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all ills suffered.”

Authoritarian leaders rarely announce themselves as tyrants — they arrive promising to fix your problems and protect you. De Tocqueville is warning that the most dangerous form of political control is one that people welcome because it feels like help rather than oppression.

The second volume of Democracy in America appeared in 1840, as European liberalism was increasingly under pressure from conservative restoration movements. De Tocqueville was concerned that democratic societies contained the seeds of their own soft tyranny through conformity and dependence on state power.

French political scientist and historian who traveled the United States in 1831 and produced Democracy in America, one of the most penetrating analyses of American society and democracy ever written. His observations about the tyranny of the majority remain widely cited today.