Tocqueville explained how important it is that in America everyone receives a salary, bosses and workers. In an aristocracy, the nobles do not receive a salary. Receiving wages, being a hireling, is something nobles cannot do. The recent royal couple move to North America is confirmation of this.
Before listening to the talk, I saw a member of Cult45 who was angry that the media do not give her idol credit for donating his salary.
After being reminded of Tocqueville's view of salaries, Trump refusing his salary could be yet another indication of how superior he believes he is to everyone else.
His own words about his intellect would make a peacock blush.In America we are all equal and our salaries, even if those salaries can be described as "princely," are an indication of how class distinction has no place in the America.
Tocqueville visited America for nine months in 1831 to write about prisons. Before the end of the decade he wrote a thousand-page two-volume work that is still the best summary of politics in America in print.
Tocqueville admired much about America, but was also clear about our faults. He visited during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson and found him loathsome. It is no wonder he is Trump's favorite President. Tocqueville wrote sadly and compellingly about the terrible treatment of Native Americans and slaves in America. Tocqueville's companion on the trip, Gustave de Beaumont, wrote about the horrors of slavery after he returned to France.
He also predicted accurately that the 20th Century would be dominated by the conflict between the US and Russia.
