this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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This “not a democracy, a republic” crap is becoming more and more popular on the right. They’re not even trying to hide the authoritarianism and fascism any more. They’re now openly saying they don’t support democracy.
It's literally "democracy = Democrats" and "a republic = republican" to them, simple as.
The Democrats should rename themselves the "Freedom Liberty" party just to fuck with em. Take back some of their words.
This is great, call it the Patriot Party or something and talk about how government waste has turned "Citizens On Patrol" into a bunch of lazy, freedom-suppressing, union members.
No, republic just means that the role of head of state isn't hereditary. Lots of dictatorships are republics, some democracies are as well. The actual political system of the USA is representative democracy (in theory at least).
The fact that these terms are so muddled in the minds of the average American is completely deliberate, because it makes it so much easier for them to subvert US democracy when people have been told that the US is not one.
There are a couple definitions. One I’ve heard most is a republic has a citizen as head of state, which disqualifies both monarchies and military dictatorships. Another is that the head of state is elected or nominated, which disqualifies non-representative systems entirely.
I've always heard that a Republic is one where power rests in the people and is exercised through their representatives. So more the latter than the former.
And it's convoluted because governments are weird. For example, the UK is not a Republic, it's a monarchy, though it's effectively a Republic because the monarch has only symbolic power. To change the UK to a Republic would only require changing the position of head of state to an elected or appointed position subject to Parliament or the people (either one), which is largely a name change. On the flipside, Iran is a Republic, and it's certainly less representative of the will of the people than the UK.
So using terms like "Republic" or "Democracy" by themselves isn't interesting, what's interesting is what level of control the people have over their own government.
republic /rɪˈpʌblɪk/ noun a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
from one of those Oxford ones
I just looked it up and did not find a concise definition. According to the German bpb even dictatorships can be republics.
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/lexikon-in-einfacher-sprache/250057/republik/
Not necessarily, North Korea is technically a republic.
No, it's not. They have a hereditary head of state who enforces his rule with control of the military.
That is why it is technically a republic, but not in practice. The constitution says it is a republic, and they actually have an election for the role of head of state, well "election", but of course in practice that is not how it works at all.
The US is also technically a representative democracy, but in practice, well...
I'm saying it's just a lying monarchy.
A pile of shit isn't a rose because you call it a rose. You're just lying.
Your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. We are in agreement, you are just a moron who can't read.
Also I am not lying, I am stating facts.
It's not "technically" a republic because it has a hereditary ruling line. Period.
You weirdly angry goon.
It's not just a Republic its a people's Republic.
So you know like way better. That's why they don't need elections it already says it belongs to the people
The hand job place near me is also technically a foot job place.
Yeah, they really should pop open one of those dictionaries – if they know what those are – and look at the definition of republic.
Some grade 9 ass shit. A republic IS a democratic structure of government. It's representative democracy.
I think what they're getting at is that majority does not neccesarily rule in the US. You can have an election where a majority of voters go one way but the electoral college (your representation) goes another.
Idk why they want to harp on that right now but whatever.
Well, we're both. But if you had to pick just one, Republic is probably more informative than Democracy since citizens rarely actually vote for laws and usually just vote for representatives. The correct term is a combination of the two: democratic republic. Wikipedia uses the term "Federal presidential constitutional republic," which I think conveys it pretty well, though I'd prefer the term "democratic" somewhere in that word salad.
The main point is that GOP is starting to use this as justification to prevent people from electing their representatives.
Sure, the GOP absolutely twists definitions to suit their goals. You can see something similar with Democrats calling Republicans "fascists," so the problem is political theater.
That's a separate discussion from educating people on what the terms actually mean. We should be fighting misinformation on all fronts.
When most of a party is literally pushing to overthrow the popular vote and instate an unelected autocrat, it’s ok to call it fascist.
Maybe, but it's applied so liberally (ha!) that it starts to lose its meaning. I worry that a significant portion of the population doesn't actually know what fascism means, so it's starting to lose its impact.
What else would you call it?
This isn’t a teenager calling dad a fascist for grounding them, the GOP is literally taking pages out of the historical fascism playbook.
I'm saying the term "fascist" is used for pretty much any policy the left doesn't like, such as abortion restrictions, spending cuts, etc.
Refusing to honor the results of an election is fascist. Passing policies that the left doesn't like isn't fascist. However, labeling conservatives as "fascist" is politically convenient, in much the same way as labeling progressives as "socialists" is politically convenient. I worry that the public doesn't actually understand what those terms mean, so calling out actual fascism or socialism is an issue.
This take is stupidity.