This week, CNN broke a major news story: Apparently, we are not a republic. ““President Biden is positioning his reelection campaign as a fight to protect our democracy,” the host said. Anderson Cooper told the audience:“If you ask any Trump supporter, they will tell you that the United States is not a democracy, so the former president is not a threat to democracy.”
Correspondent Donnie O’Sullivan wandered among Trump supporters at a recent rally, asking them about threats to democracy. “Obviously there’s a lot of criticism of Trump, that he’s bad for democracy, that he’s bad for American democracy,” O’Sullivan told one couple, who quickly cut him off. “We’re a republic. We’re not a democracy. We’re not a democracy. We’re a republic,” they told O’Sullivan.
We need to understand that democracy is a very important part of our republic, but it is not the only thing we are. We are a democratic republic.
O’Sullivan, who is originally from Ireland, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories,” he told Cooper later in the show. “You hear stuff on the street, but when I hear Americans who call themselves patriots say America is not a democracy, it gives me pause.”
Anne Applebaum, a historian and writer for The Atlantic who often worries about serious threats to democracy at home and abroad, assured O’Sullivan and Cooper that the republican talking point is simply misinformation. “The reason you hear people saying America is not a democracy is because Trump has people around him who want you to say that, and he spreads that narrative,” she said.
Let’s be clear: we are a republic, which is why the Pledge of Allegiance says “to the Republic,” which our flag represents.
Here’s the problem: People, and not just people like Cooper, O’Sullivan and Applebaum, don’t understand the difference between a democracy and a republic. On election day we become a democracy. The principle of a democracy is “one person, one vote” and we use that principle to democratically elect people. But we’re not voting on every law. We’re voting for the representatives who will represent you in a republic.
In a republic, it is generally understood that you cannot expect people to vote with all the issues they understand. They also understand that pure democracy is no good. A “democracy only” country would fail every time, because all it takes is a crisis to get people to vote how they want to. You just need to get enough people fired up and scheduled to vote, and they will vote based on the passions of the moment. This results in dangerous laws like the Patriot Act. When something bad happens, people react, and they don’t always react wisely.
A purely democratic system takes advantage of people’s momentary reactions; a republic slows down the process and gives reason a chance.
Can you imagine a nation of people who don’t know the difference between a republic and a democracy voting on every issue, when the media is begging so-called experts to tell us that this country is not a republic?
America’s Founding Fathers spent a lot of time trying to find the best system, and they ruled out democracy because it was bound to fail. Instead, they adopted the democratic principle of “one person, one vote” to choose our representatives. That’s why we are a representative republic.
We need to explain this to our people. They need to understand that while democracy is a very important part of our republic, it is not the only thing we are. We are a democratic republic. We vote for our people to choose the people who will represent us.
The Founding Fathers carefully considered human nature, which is driven by emotions and feelings. That’s why the Constitution was created to constrain the government and to stop those in power from using the emotions of the people to make every decision. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.
In the system intended by our Founding Fathers, we elect representatives who are accountable to us, which is why they are the only ones with fiscal power and who can initiate pending legislation, but those who claim to support democracy just spend the money however they like.
Why do our representatives get elected every two years? Because we need to be able to say to them, “No, that’s not what we want.” Our elections are a way to hold our representatives accountable. That’s why every spending bill has to start with Congress, because Congress is accountable to us.
But what about Congress? Why doesn’t Congress do anything? CNN “experts” will tell you it’s because of gridlock between Republicans and Democrats, but that’s not the reason. It’s because no one in Washington wants it to work that way. They don’t want Congress to answer to you. They want to be the one pulling the strings.
They do this through executive orders, which, while part of the American Republic, were never intended to supplant acts of Congress. Joe Biden is using executive orders to usurp Congressional accountability.
We should not be ruled by faceless, unelected bureaucrats. The EPA, the ATF, the Feds, these people are not elected by us. That would be fine if they were just hired to make the system work, but they make the rules, which are now law. Only Congress can make the laws, and Congress doesn’t do that anymore.
This is why we must restore our Republic. Democracy is happening apart from the Republic because the “Republic” part of our Democratic Republic is broken.
The CNN “experts” who claim America is a democracy, not a republic, have no idea what a republic really is. If we can’t explain what a republic is, how do you expect our children to explain it? How do you expect us to defend the United States of America? How do you expect us to secure our rights and pass them on to the next generation if we don’t know what our rights are and why they were established?
The responsibility is ours. We must restore our Republic.
