Democracy in America: What is it?
Whatever it is, we know that it is under siege.
Barely a moment goes by without tocsins sounding about various threats to “our democracy.”
It used to be that the biggest, baddest threat to “our democracy” was Donald Trump.
Then a curious thing happened. When it comes to “threats to our democracy,” Trump seems to have been overshadowed somewhat by a new threat: the Constitution.
Today, if you are truly up-to-date, you know that the Constitution, while venerable, is basically at odds with democracy.
The Constitution allowed Donald Trump to become president. Ergo the Constitution is “dysfunctional.” QED.
Originally, “democracy” meant rule by “the demos,” the people.
But most political theorists from Plato and Aristotle on down have been suspicious of “pure,” direct, unchaperoned democracy.
James Madison, in Federalist 10, warned that throughout history most democracies have been as “short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
It was part of the founders’ genius to have forged a species of popular rule that carefully modulated the passions of the masses in such a way that protected individual liberty in the face of the imperatives of democracy.
Hence the Electoral College, which is a primary mechanism for preserving federalism.
They all repeat the same word democracy when in fact we are a Constitutional Republic
A Constitutional Republic is a form of Representative Democracy. Did you finish high school?
Republic means ruled by the people not the govt !!!! Real America