My Fortuneteller Is Alexis de Toqueville
Welcome to our world. Econ prof Barry Brownstein writes at the Foundation for Economic Education:

Tocqueville foresaw that if despotism came to America, it would not be of the old-world European kind; it would seemingly be more benign, an "all-powerful government, but one elected by the citizens;" deadly, nevertheless, to freedom. Look around us today. Presidential executive orders, congressional legislation, and ruling by bureaucratic fiat are shifting more and more power to the federal government. Sadly, a critical mass of the public is comfortable with this - as long as the power is used in the direction that they favor.

Democratic voting to elect our powerful masters is no guarantee of freedom. If Tocqueville was writing today, he might pen this same observation about the voting public in this year's election: "Under this system, citizens leave their state of dependence just long enough to choose their masters and then they return to it." If American-style despotism deepens, Tocqueville forewarns that it will:

Spread its arms over the whole of society, covering the surface of social life with a network of petty, complicated, detailed, and uniform rules through which even the most original minds and the most energetic of spirits cannot reach the light in order to rise above the crowd. It does not break men's wills but it does soften, bend, and control them. Rarely does it force men to act, but it constantly opposes what actions they perform. It does not tyrannize but it inhibits, represses, drains, snuffs out, dulls so much effort that finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as shepherd.