As the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, that question feels more relevant than ever. Few books written about America have enjoyed the influence of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Politicians quote it, scholars debate it, and commentators regularly invoke it to explain everything from political polarisation to civic decline. Yet Tocqueville's enduring significance lies less in the accuracy of his predictions than in the quality of the questions he asked.

When Tocqueville arrived in America, he encountered a young republic of just thirteen million people. There was no federal income tax, no vast administrative bureaucracy, no radio, television or internet. Americans travelled by horse and steamboat, gathered in town meetings, read local newspapers, and built communities through churches, civic societies and voluntary associations.

Today's United States could hardly appear more different. It is a continental nation of more than 340 million people, the world's largest economy, a global military power and a society connected through digital networks that operate at the speed of algorithms rather than town halls.

And yet many of the tensions Tocqueville identified remain strikingly familiar.

The real question, then, is not whether America still resembles the country Tocqueville visited. Clearly it does not. The more interesting question is whether the forces he believed shaped democratic societies continue to shape America today.

The answer is, surprisingly, yes.

Not because Tocqueville foresaw modern America in detail, but because he recognised enduring patterns within democratic life.

Equality: Democracy's Driving Force

Most political thinkers begin with liberty. Tocqueville began somewhere else.

His central insight was that the defining force of modern democracy was the gradual advance of equality. By equality he did not mean equal wealth or equal outcomes. He meant something deeper: a society in which inherited rank mattered less, ordinary citizens expected political participation, and people increasingly regarded one another as social equals.

For Tocqueville, this "equality of conditions" transformed far more than politics. It reshaped family life, religion, education, economic ambition and even the way people thought about themselves. Democracy was therefore not merely a constitutional arrangement but a social condition.

Yet Tocqueville never regarded equality as an uncomplicated triumph.

The same force that empowered citizens could also encourage conformity. As people became more alike in status, they often became more attentive to the opinions of those around them. Democratic societies, he warned, could produce a new form of pressure—not through kings or aristocrats, but through the overwhelming authority of majority opinion.

This paradox remains remarkably relevant. Contemporary debates over democratic erosion, institutional trust and political polarisation continue to revolve around the balance between equality, liberty and public authority. Tocqueville recognised that democracy would always require navigating these competing impulses rather than resolving them.

From a Local Republic to a Global Superpower

The America Tocqueville explored was intensely local.

Political authority was dispersed. Local government mattered enormously. Citizens organised themselves through churches, neighbourhood institutions, charitable organisations and countless voluntary associations. Tocqueville famously admired what he called the Americans' "art of association" their instinct for solving collective problems by organising together rather than waiting for the state.

That local republic has not disappeared, but it has been transformed.

Over the past two centuries, federal authority has expanded dramatically. Washington now oversees an administrative system that Tocqueville could scarcely have imagined, while the United States exercises influence across a global political and economic order.

Technology has transformed civic life just as profoundly. Many of the associations that once existed face-to-face now exist online. Political communities increasingly form around shared interests rather than shared places. A neighbourhood meeting may now compete with a podcast, an online campaign or a social media movement for citizens' attention.

This might suggest that Tocqueville's analysis has become obsolete.

In reality, it points to something subtler.

Americans remain deeply participatory. They continue to litigate political disputes, mobilise around public causes, debate constitutional principles and invest extraordinary emotional energy in public life. The institutions have evolved, but the expectation that citizens should actively shape politics remains unmistakably Tocquevillian.

The republic has changed its form. Its democratic instincts have proved far more durable.

The Tyranny of the Majority in the Age of Algorithms

Perhaps no phrase from Democracy in America has entered modern political vocabulary more successfully than Tocqueville's warning about the "tyranny of the majority."

Importantly, he was not speaking only about elections.

His concern was that democratic majorities might acquire such moral authority that dissent itself became difficult. Public opinion, he argued, could exercise a quieter but more pervasive form of control than formal law.

The mechanisms have changed dramatically since the nineteenth century.

Newspapers and town meetings have given way to twenty-four-hour news, social media platforms, podcasts and algorithmically curated information. Public opinion now forms through digital networks that reward speed, emotion and engagement rather than deliberation.

Yet the underlying concern has not disappeared.

If anything, it has acquired a new dimension.

Today's challenge is less whether governments suppress minority views than whether digital systems encourage conformity through visibility, virality and social pressure. Citizens remain formally free to disagree, but the architecture of online communication can reward consensus within communities while deepening polarisation between them.

Tocqueville could never have anticipated artificial intelligence, social media or algorithmic recommendation systems. But he understood a more enduring truth: democracy depends not only on who governs but also on how public opinion is formed.

That insight may be even more significant today than it was in 1835.

Equality Beyond Politics

Equality itself has also changed.

For Tocqueville, equality primarily described social standing and political participation. Democratic citizens expected equal legal status and equal civic dignity, even when economic inequalities remained substantial.

Contemporary America has expanded that understanding.

Questions of equality increasingly encompass identity, cultural recognition, language and symbolic representation alongside legal rights. Political debates now concern not only who possesses equal opportunities but also whose experiences are recognised, whose voices are heard and whose identities receive public legitimacy.

This development does not invalidate Tocqueville's framework.

Rather, it extends it into areas he could scarcely have anticipated.

Equality has become both an institutional principle and a cultural lens through which political life is interpreted. That expansion has broadened democratic participation while simultaneously making consensus more difficult to achieve. As more groups seek recognition within the democratic system, politics inevitably becomes more contested.

From a Tocquevillian perspective, this is neither surprising nor necessarily pathological. It reflects democracy's own internal logic: expanding equality continually generates new claims for inclusion.

The challenge is ensuring that this expansion strengthens rather than fragments the shared civic culture on which democratic government ultimately depends.

Civic Association in a Digital Age

For Tocqueville, voluntary associations were democracy's hidden infrastructure.

Between isolated individuals and the power of the state stood countless organisations religious congregations, charities, clubs, local governments and civic societies that taught citizens how to cooperate, compromise and govern themselves.

These institutions mattered because they cultivated habits rather than simply expressing opinions.

Modern America presents a more ambiguous picture.

Participation in many traditional civic organisations has declined over recent decades, while new forms of engagement have flourished online. Digital campaigns can mobilise millions of people within hours, yet they often prove fleeting. Online communities can connect strangers across continents while simultaneously weakening local civic relationships.

This raises an important question.

Is democracy sustained by the existence of associations, or by the particular kinds of associations that citizens build?

Tocqueville probably would not have dismissed digital civic life outright. But he might have questioned whether relationships formed primarily through algorithms can cultivate the same habits of trust, compromise and shared responsibility that emerged from sustained face-to-face participation.

That remains one of the defining questions of democratic life in the twenty-first century.

Conclusion: Tocqueville's Questions Still Matter

Two hundred and fifty years after the founding of the United States, America is wealthier, larger, more diverse and vastly more powerful than the republic Alexis de Tocqueville encountered. The institutions have evolved, the economy has been transformed and technology has altered almost every aspect of political life.

Yet the dilemmas he identified remain strikingly familiar.

How can a democratic society preserve liberty while pursuing equality? How should citizens resist the pressure of majority opinion without abandoning democratic legitimacy? Can civic life flourish as government grows larger and social relationships become increasingly mediated by technology? And what kinds of institutions are necessary to sustain self-government over generations?

These are not nineteenth-century questions. They are enduring democratic questions.

To ask whether Tocqueville was "right" about America therefore misses the deeper point. He did not predict modern America in all its complexity, nor could he have done so. His achievement was more significant. He identified the recurring tensions that democratic societies repeatedly confront, regardless of their size, technology or historical moment.

That is why Democracy in America continues to matter nearly two centuries after it was written.

The America Tocqueville observed no longer exists. But the democratic forces he described continue to shape the republic that has grown from it. His greatest legacy is not that he foresaw America's future, but that he provided a language for understanding democracy's enduring contradictions and those contradictions remain as relevant at America's 250th anniversary as they were when a young French visitor first crossed the Atlantic.

• Independent