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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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politics
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Democracy is the foundation of this country.
It should have been, but it wasn't.
If democracy was overwhelmingly popular, then we wouldn't have gotten the electoral college.
Or given each state the same number if Senate seats. That used to be "balanced" by the House, but then we froze the number and it's off too.
We're taught in school that democracy was a foundation of this country, but it's bullshit revisionist history.
I see people say this all the time. It is not revisionist history. This is the American form of democracy. It is what is in the constitution. How much more foundational do you need? Our foundational document defines how our democracy works.
Exactly. The most common rebuttal I've heard to this is that the word "democracy" doesn't appear in the U.S. Constitution. However, other ideas like "freedom of religion" and "separation of powers" also do not appear as exact quotes in the Constitution.
Instead, the concept embodied by these phrases do exist and are written into the very fabric of the Constitution.
Here's a link which explains it best: https://www.thoughtco.com/republic-vs-democracy-4169936
Also, back in the founders era, they would have understood democracy to mean what we today consider direct democracy. They thought that was too messy (to have every citizen vote on every new law etc) which is why went with a slightly different model. So they went with representative democracy instead of direct democracy. Even the Electoral College technically fits with this definition - we use the statewide popular vote (direct voting) to pick our representatives, the electors, who will represent us in the vote for the US President and VP. (Except for the two states that do it by district and split their EC votes, but in that case it's the district wide popular vote that picks the representative.)
The only universal definition of Republic is "not a monarchy". That doesn't mean we get to run the spectrum from anarchy to totalitarian regime.
This is wrong and has been debunked many times.
See for example https://www.thoughtco.com/republic-vs-democracy-4169936 or https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/ (archive: https://archive.is/FbuL5 )
Granted, some specific decisions like the EC could have gone better. But overall, the US is a democracy - specifically a representative democracy.
In fact, to say otherwise is a major GOP talking point. For example (from the Atlantic article),
Of course the counter example is a theocratic republic. A living example? The Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran citizens living in Iran vote for their President, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iranian_presidential_election#Opinion_polling_and_forecasts
They also vote for their version of "member of Congress" (ok so they don't call it Congress), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_districts_of_Iran & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Consultative_Assembly#Constituencies
But while the President of Iran is the head of government there, he's second to the divinely appointed supreme leader, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran (in practice the SL appoints members to a Guardians Council, who vet approve members of the Assembly of Experts, who reappoint the SL - a bunch of silly layers for the SL to basically elect himself) - so this is a republic where folks technically have their representatives but the power lies elsewhere.