When Tocqueville came to America in 1831, just shy of 200 years ago, what he observed astonished him. His expectations, much like the expectations of the elites in Europe and our own country today, began with our “remarkable tendency to organize themselves in pursuit of shared goals.” “Americans of all ages constantly unite,” Tocqueville wrote in his book Democracy in America. “Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations, in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small.” When Tocqueville visited the U.S., we were in an era of rapid change, not unlike today. Some were moving westward, others toward cities, others away from cities, all while building transportation systems, such as canals and roadways, to achieve that moment. The Industrial Revolution was at the center of all that cultural and political change. Our postal system was also speeding up. Our political parties were raucous, populist, and changing with the times. And we were influenced by those changed by how we formed communities. Sound familiar? We are also in a moment of rapid change, building high-tech superhighways, this time through artificial intelligence and the internet. We are also moving inward this time, some rediscovering the middle of our country, while others try to remake our cities. And the technological revolution of AI is having as much of a cultural and political impact as the industrial revolution. What @FreddyLA7 @shaunvlog_ and all of the other World Cup soccer fans are experiencing is a modern-day Tocqueville moment. Freddy and Shaun likely had no idea what to expect when arriving here. If they read the European press or the Atlantic, it was probably pretty dark. Tocqueville himself wrote that he expected to find a raw, chaotic society, which is pretty much a condensed version of the criticisms you read about America and Americans from elite news organizations today. What Tocqueville found instead were Americans who were constantly developing ways, and or tools, for creating associations, both large and small — associations with wildly different interests, from small local sports and community or religious groups with little internal order to vast national networks with structures. Think the Rotary Club, NAACP, the Elks, Lions Clubs, Future Farmers of America, the Grange, and 4-H. washingtonexaminer.com/opini…