It's coming through a hole in the air
From those nights in Tiananmen Square
It's coming from the feel
That it ain't exactly real
Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there
From the war against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
In contrast to the idea in the previous line that American Democracy isn’t real, Cohen suggests that American Democracy is real but not truly present in America. 
  In other words, American democracy is an ideal that America has never lived up to. 
 This sets up the later idea that America is home to a “spiritual thirst” for democracy
Democracy