Attacks on democracy take many forms. Some volleys lodged at democracies can be directed at institutions, others attack structures, processes, and norms. One of the more insidious techniques used by demagogues to undermine democracy is to impoverish the language of political discourse, frequently using the art of sophistry1. A particular dangerous example of contemporary sophistry that I hear with increasing regularity is that “America is not a democracy, but a republic.”
Hearing such a pointless argument, I question what the speaker really means. Googling the phrase, I notice that it is usually employed to counter an interlocutor who suggests that their side has majority opinion with them. For example, when a healthcare reform advocate argues that in polls, the majority of Americans favor “Medicare for all,” some counter that “America is not a democracy (but a republic).” Such a retort functions to dismiss the weight of majority opinion. I observe that the refrain is also used by Americans who identify as members of the Republican Party, as a way to assert superiority over those in the Democrat Party. After all, if the U.S. is not a democracy, Democrats are wrong on ontological grounds.
Beyond just misunderstanding the meaning and history of the terms republic and democracy, those who argue that the United States is not a democracy erode public support for democratic principles. Why vote or participate in the American democratic experiment if America is not a democracy? Certain conservative and libertarian think tanks use their influence to fight against the principles of majority rule and universal suffrage.2 In the war of words, a not very subtle weapon used by such democracy averse pundits and scholars is to argue that America is not a democracy.
Words have power and are often self-fulfilling. The danger I see is that if enough people stop believing that America is a democracy, it will cease to be one.
Difference between Republics and Democracies
To say that America is not a democracy, but a republic is like saying that watermelons naturally do not contain seeds but are fruits. That is because republics have democratic structures.
Republicanism rose in the early modern period in opposition to the rule of monarchs (royalism). A republic is a society where the political authority of government flows up from the people and not down from a king or queen. Another essential distinction between royalism and republicanism is that republics follow the rule of law, in contrast to governments ruled by monarchs whose very words are the law.
Centrally defined as it is by the presence of popular sovereignty, on the surface, the terms republic and democracy sound interchangeable. However, as connected as they are, they are not the same. The word democracy comes from Greek words demos kratia, which directly translates as “rule by the people.” Since people disagree in practice, democracies imply versions of majoritarian rule. Since the power is derived from the people in a republic, they must have some democratic body inside it, which votes on laws. However, republics can include limits on majority power. Restrictions on pure democracies include representative legislative bodies, constitutional limits on power, and guarantees on individual rights that limit what the majority can do to minorities.
One should think of republic as a broad term for a system of rule by the people, which must have some democratic rule by citizens in it that may include non-democratic structures. Democracy, then, is an ideology that promotes certain ideals that shape republics.
So, is America a Republic or a Democracy?
The correct answer to whether America is a republic or a democracy is, “Yes, the United States of America is a republic with a constitution that establishes a representative democracy.” To be succinct, one can also call the U.S. a democratic republic.
Does it matter if a sizeable number of Americans have been convinced that the U.S. is not a democracy? When polls show that fewer than 30% of millennials say that living in a democracy is essential3, it arguably is. When the very ideal of democracy is diminishing, anything that reduces it further matters.
I look forward to reading your comments below with your thoughts on the America as democracy or republic debate.
Footnotes
1 The word sophistry comes from the practice of the Ancient Greek Sophists (wise-guys) who had the skill of making a weaker (specious and illogical) argument sound more convincing than a stronger one.
2 For evidence of anti-democratic positions, one can just peruse book titles of prominent libertarians such as Georgetown’s professor’s Jason Brennan’s Against Democracy, George Mason U.’s libertarian law professor Ilya Somin’s Democracy and Political Ignorance, and libertarian economist Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.
3 See World Values Survey, 2005-2011, and Foa and Mounk (2015) “The Democratic Disconnect.”
