An ongoing canard on the Right and among MAGA types is that the United States is “not a democracy but a republic.” This piece by Barbara Clark Smith of the Smithsonian Institution is a fine, concise historical review of the relationship of “republic” and “democracy,” which was a concern among the founders and has had a place in American political, or at least politico-theoretical, discourse ever since.

The brief story here is that of course we are a democracy and a republic. No, we are not a “democracy” if we mean by that direct or pure majority rule; but it is not clear that anyone ever meant that when they called the US a democracy. We were never not going to be a representative democracy — and a constitutional republic. (For an interesting take on representative democracies that are not electoral — actually, like the democracy of ancient Athens, which was a lottery democracy — check out this video.) 

Conservatives used to understand this. But today’s Reactionary Right wants, disingenuously, to use the republic/democracy distinction to promulgate attacks precisely on fundamental democratic elements of our constitutional republic, such as voting rights, equal representation, civil rights guarantees, etc.

Not without reason, the founders worried about mob rule as much as they worried about tyranny. They crafted a system that sought to raise barriers to either — and of course, that also ensconced the power of the privileged: men, landholders (not to mention slaveholders), the wealthy.  In the first century of the nation’s existence, democratic elements, at least at the national level, were minimized: there was of course slavery, and no direct election of senators, and severely limited enfranchisement. This is the world that the Reactionary Right wants to return to (check here for just one example: taking the vote away from women). 

The “Second Revolution” wrought by the Civil War and Reconstruction dramatically democratized our constitutional republic: slavery was ended, birthright citizenship was confirmed, civil rights were affirmed in a new way, direct election of senators was implemented, women were given the vote, and so on. I for one think that what goes with this is a significant increase in human dignity — an increase advanced by the New Deal, the Great Society, the Women’s Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Same-Sex Marriage Movement, and more.

So, when someone says, “the US is not a democracy,” ask if what they are really saying is, “the US is not based on universal human dignity.” 

We must not turn back the clock.