A protester in Egypt, after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, held a sign that said “Democracy is not for Muslims.” Maybe it should have read: “We tried democracy. It didn’t work, and it will never succeed here.” This sign and its slogan made me started thinking about why democracy works in the United States and yet in so many other countries, it is fraught with problems. Could it be that the belief or non-belief in the effectiveness of democracy is a self-fulfilling prophesy?

Americans worship democracy. No matter how much they hate a president, the idea of militarily removing him or her seems absurd. It’s hard to even think of a scenario in which this would happen. Ingrained in American political culture is a sense of trust that regardless of system imperfections, social and political conflict can be inclusively resolved through democratic institutions.

Built into democracy is an inherent trust in the ability of the democratic framework to resolve difference and conflict. If a group does not believe this, they become willing to go outside the system to achieve resolution. When they do so, democracy fails. Thus, believing that democracy doesn’t work ensures that it won’t.

Returning to the situation in Egypt, it can be said that the military and many protesters believed that Egyptian social, economic and political conflict could not be resolved within the democratic framework that had been designed there. As such, the military intervened and forcibly removed President Morsi triggering a failure of Egyptian democracy. It was self-fulfilling.

So, if the protester believes that democracy is not for Muslims, perhaps he and his fellow protesters have created their own self-fulfilling prophesy ensuring that democracy will indeed fail for Muslims.

What does this mean for Egypt? Can the state rebuild not just the democratic institutions, but also public confidence in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of democracy itself? I don’t know, but I truly hope so.