“You know, we don’t live in a democracy because a democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner. OK? It’s not just majority rule. It’s a constitutional republic. The founders set that up because they followed the biblical admonition of what a civil society is supposed to look like. What’s happened, Alex, …
I remember I had a thought that maybe they feel the need to claim so because the line that they were going into Iraq to establish democracy created lots of democracy fans (however misinformed about the US’s goal they were) that would otherwise be part of the republican base.
It’s probably just because their policies are actually deeply unpopular and they need a fig leaf to cover for the fact they’re pursuing legal-but-undemocratic means to achieve their ends.
Republicans (see, it’s right there in the name) have been openly mocking people who think we live in a democracy for literally my entire life
The whole “Constitutional republic” thing is a old John Bircher talking point from what I can tell.
The only horseshoe theory is “america isn’t a democracy” and the critical difference is the appendment of “and that’s good, actually”.
I hope that there’s a huge blue wave, and it stays blue, just so that I can say to them “America is a Constitutional Democracy, not a Republic”.
That would require actually uprooting small-r republicanism from the government, when they can’t even uproot large-R Republicanism
I remember I had a thought that maybe they feel the need to claim so because the line that they were going into Iraq to establish democracy created lots of democracy fans (however misinformed about the US’s goal they were) that would otherwise be part of the republican base.
It’s probably just because their policies are actually deeply unpopular and they need a fig leaf to cover for the fact they’re pursuing legal-but-undemocratic means to achieve their ends.