America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy Is a Dangerous and Wrong Argument (2020)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/

by clouddrover • 3 years ago

23 13 3 years ago

why?

krapp• 3 years ago

You'll find the title is actually a link which, if you click it, leads to an article in which the author presents an argument which answers your question.

nihonthrowaway• 3 years ago

It's dangerous, because many immigrants reflexively vote for the Democratic party because "America is a Democracy"

Mentioning that "America is a Republic" may cost votes.

dirtyhippiefree• 3 years ago

Especially ironic in an age where the platform increasingly matters less than the personality.

It’s a situation where “the party can catch up.”

shrimp_emoji• 3 years ago

Originally, the Senate was the "republican" half of Congress, whose members (senators) were chosen by the state legislature instead of elected directly and weren't numbered by state population.

The House of Representatives was the "democratic" half, whose members (representatives) were elected directly.

This was supposed to strike some balance between "mob rule" and perhaps more "enlightened republicanism".

The 17th Amendment made the Senate almost as democratic as the House, with senators directly elected too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the... (It retains some republicanism in that senators are still not numbered by state population and have longer terms than representatives.)

So the trend is that the republic's been getting more democratic.

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

Originally, the Senate was the "republican" half of Congress
The House of Representatives was the "democratic" half

These are both wrong. “Democratic” and “Republican” aren’t conflicting goals; the US isn’t a democratic republic because it has separate sets of democratic and republican institutions.

It’s republican in that state office and political power are not private property the way they are in a monarchy, and its democratic in that the power of the government derives in theory from the consebt of thr governed, and because it has formal electoral institutions designed, loosely, to align those things in practice.

It is true that it is imperfectly democratic, and that this represents a compromise, but that's a compromise with being a federation of states, not with being a Republic. Its a federal democratic republic, where the first two (not the last two) are in tension.

The 17th Amendment made the Senate almost as democratic as the House

Nowhere close. It made the Senate directly elected, but havigb officers directly elected vs appointed by another institution which is denocratically accountable doesn't make a body particularly more democratic, when the main reason it is imperfectly democratic is unequal (in reperesebted population) apportionment, which is not changed.

It retains some republicanism in that senators are still not numbered by state population and have longer terms than representatives

Neither of those are “republican” features, and only the first reflects the federal vs democratic character of government. The staggering of terms between House, President. and Senate makes it less likely that a transitory change of popular mood causes a complete change of government, but that's neither republican nor federal more than democratic. Its a feature on a whole different axis.

belltaco• 3 years ago

So the trend is that the republic's been getting more democratic

Dont think it's a trend if nothing has changed in 110 years, almost half of the entire life of the republic.

egberts1• 3 years ago

Presidential Federal Constitutional Republic, that United State government is.

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

The origin of this particular line of rhetoric? c. 1787:

"A republic, if you can keep it." - Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

mediumsmart• 3 years ago

Of course it’s a democracy, the best that money can buy.

orwin• 3 years ago

Wow. What the article call 'minority rule' doesn't mean it's not a democracy. In an indirect representative democracy, that happens.

And being a democracy do not oppose it being a republic, I don't know who can seriously think that.

mitchbob• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/2023.07.22-052941/https://www.theatlantic...

simonblack• 3 years ago

America is an oligarchy, the same as all other self-proclaimed 'democracies'.

There is no such animal as a true 'democracy' anywhere in the world.

America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy Is a Dangerous and Wrong Argument (2020)

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