Welcome to Jame's Madison's worst nightmare!

Publius

Publius

Well-known member
After nearly two and a half centuries, American democracy teeters on the brink of collapse, not from outside invasion or some ideological revolution, but from within -- hollowed out and ready to be replaced by a model more familiar to Budapest or Moscow than to Philadelphia. The transformation is nearly complete: a government once bound by law and tradition now bends to the whims of a man who openly mocks both.

For those of you who don't quite understand, Democracy and tyranny have an inverse relationship. The degree you have one, to the same degree you have less of the other, but it's not a linear relationship, at a given point, as democracy weakens, the linear scale of the inverse, it snaps and then you have full on tyranny, or we could just as easily call it Fascism, but Tyranny may, or may not, come with the other aspects of fascism. In Trump's case, it could easily rise to fascism, given his commonality with it, that is, if we are not careful about granting this man too much power. It does seem, however, that Republicans in the Congress and Senate are rolling over to his every whim and fancy. This is deeply concerting to any freedom loving human, and it should be to you, too, conservative or liberal. Thing is, giving Trump this much power is incredibly dangerous, because he has no moral compass, and I think there is overwhelming evidence to that point. He will easily justify his actions with self serving rationalizations in pursuit of total power. I wouldn't put it past Trump in a New York minute.

I make that claim (of the 'snap to tyranny' from the linear decline of democracy's inverse relationship) because history is replete with examples of it, to wit (courtesy CoPilot):
  1. The Fall of the Roman Republic (circa 133–27 BCE)
    • Rome's republic functioned for centuries with a system of checks and balances. However, as political norms eroded—through corruption, expansion of executive power, and political violence—the decline was not a smooth, linear process.
    • The republic weakened incrementally, but then, following Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, power consolidated rapidly under Augustus. What had been a turbulent but still-functioning republic snapped into autocracy nearly overnight.
  2. Weimar Germany to Nazi Germany (1919–1933)
    • The Weimar Republic faced internal instability, economic crises, and increasing political extremism. While democratic institutions eroded slowly through legal means (e.g., emergency decrees under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution), the transition to full tyranny was abrupt.
    • The Reichstag Fire of 1933 acted as the snapping point, leading to the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, which effectively dissolved democracy and handed Hitler total control.
  3. Chile (1970–1973)
    • Chile’s democracy under Salvador Allende faced mounting pressures from both domestic opposition and foreign intervention. Democratic decline was gradual, with economic sabotage, political polarization, and institutional gridlock chipping away at the system.
    • However, on September 11, 1973, the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet marked the snap—democracy was replaced overnight with a military dictatorship that ruled for 17 years.
  4. Turkey under Erdoğan (2002–present)
    • Initially elected as a democratic reformer, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gradually eroded Turkey’s democratic institutions—curbing press freedom, jailing political opponents, and centralizing executive power.
    • The failed coup attempt in 2016 became the snapping point, after which Turkey transitioned rapidly from an illiberal democracy to an autocracy.
  5. Russia under Putin (2000–present)
    • Russia under Boris Yeltsin (1991–1999) was a chaotic but functioning democracy. When Vladimir Putin took power, democratic backsliding occurred gradually—restrictions on the press, weakening of opposition parties, and judicial manipulation.
    • The 2020 constitutional referendum, which reset presidential term limits and allowed Putin to rule until 2036, marked the snapping point. By then, opposition had been fully crushed, and Russia had functionally become a dictatorship.
Theoretical Basis
  • Aristotle’s Cycle of Governments: He theorized that democracies can decay into oligarchy or tyranny when citizens become disengaged or when demagogues rise to power.
  • Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Totalitarianism: She described how democratic erosion often seems gradual but can suddenly give way to totalitarian rule when legal structures are overridden by emergency powers.
  • Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance: A weakening democracy that tolerates intolerant actors too much can suddenly collapse into tyranny when those actors gain enough power.
Click to expand...
The legislature? As I mentioned, above, it appears to be a supine assembly of Republican lackeys, every senator and congressman content to abandon their constitutional duties and mutter in unison: Trump shall have whatever he desires. The executive? A president who no longer pretends to obey the law, merely daring Congress and the courts to stop him. And the judiciary? JD Vance, that eager footman of the new regime, has already declared that Trump may simply ignore the courts altogether.

The very mechanism of legal enforcement -- the federal marshals -- reports to the attorney general, who in turn serves at the pleasure of Trump. And who might that be? None other than Pam Bondi, whose record of fealty to Trump is unimpeachable. She is not investigating him, of course -- far from it. Her attentions are directed instead at those who once dared to scrutinize him: the FBI agents who had the audacity to retrieve classified documents after he spirited them away to Mar-a-Lago. Documents left so carelessly exposed that any sufficiently enterprising Russian agent could have strolled in, pressed a button on a conveniently placed copier, and walked out with a tidy bundle of state secrets.

If Trump defies court orders en masse, if this is not a constitutional crisis, the term has no meaning. The executive openly disregards the legislative and judicial branches. The law exists only insofar as it serves his purpose.

Consider, for instance, the small matter of federal payments. A judge orders the administration, fronted by Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, to continue them. Yet, suspicions loom as payments are delayed, constricting farmers in the Midwest, among others. Speculation grows that the funds might instead be redirected -- where else? -- to tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. One must admire the symmetry of it all: wealth hoarded at the top while those at the bottom gasp for air. A republic’s last, struggling breath.

And how did we arrive at this perfect storm of corruption? Let us tip our hats to the Supreme Court -- specifically, the five reliable Republican justices who, in Citizens United, pronounced bribery to be perfectly legal. If a billionaire wishes to purchase a president, who are we to object? And so, with a mere $270 million -- chump change in the grand scheme of things -- Musk has secured his own personal strongman.

But what, precisely, does he receive in return? The spoils are many, and the list is long:

  • The FAA administrator who dared to investigate SpaceX? Removed.
  • The Department of Justice’s inquiry into Musk’s dubious financial dealings? A relic of the past.
  • The USAID Inspector General’s review of Starlink? Terminated.
  • The Pentagon’s concerns over Musk’s foreign contacts -- perhaps even with Putin himself? Vanished.
  • The USDA’s investigation into grotesque animal abuse at Musk’s brain-implant company? Discarded.
  • The National Transportation Safety Board’s probes into Tesla? Likely dead.
  • The EPA, once a thorn in Tesla’s side for its numerous environmental violations, is being systematically dismantled.
  • The National Labor Relations Board’s 17 active cases against Tesla and SpaceX? Likely to be rendered moot.
  • The FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Department of Defense, all once engaged in various levels of oversight, are now little more than paper tigers.
What remains is a government for sale. For Musk, that $277 million was not an expense, but an investment -- one that will yield dividends in the billions. Billions from where? From you, me, and every US Taxpayer. What an ROI, eh? A mere pittance to secure absolute impunity and we foot the bill. How nice.

And so here we are, at the inevitable conclusion of a long and sordid process: the rich will buy, the powerful will sell, and the people -- the great, ungovernable masses -- will be told they still live in a democracy.

Welcome to James Madison’s worst nightmare.

Thanks a lot, Republicans.
 
Publius said:
After nearly two and a half centuries, American democracy teeters on the brink of collapse, not from outside invasion or some ideological revolution, but from within -- hollowed out and ready to be replaced by a model more familiar to Budapest or Moscow than to Philadelphia. The transformation is nearly complete: a government once bound by law and tradition now bends to the whims of a man who openly mocks both.

For those of you who don't quite understand, Democracy and tyranny have an inverse relationship. The degree you have one, to the same degree you have less of the other, but it's not a linear relationship, at a given point, as democracy weakens, the linear scale of the inverse, it snaps and then you have full on tyranny, or we could just as easily call it Fascism, but Tyranny may, or may not, come with the other aspects of fascism. In Trump's case, it could easily rise to fascism, given his commonality with it, that is, if we are not careful about granting this man too much power. It does seem, however, that Republicans in the Congress and Senate are rolling over to his every whim and fancy. This is deeply concerting to any freedom loving human, and it should be to you, too, conservative or liberal. Thing is, giving Trump this much power is incredibly dangerous, because he has no moral compass, and I think there is overwhelming evidence to that point. He will easily justify his actions with self serving rationalizations in pursuit of total power. I wouldn't put it past Trump in a New York minute.

I make that claim (of the 'snap to tyranny' from the linear decline of democracy's inverse relationship) because history is replete with examples of it, to wit (courtesy CoPilot):

The legislature? As I mentioned, above, it appears to be a supine assembly of Republican lackeys, every senator and congressman content to abandon their constitutional duties and mutter in unison: Trump shall have whatever he desires. The executive? A president who no longer pretends to obey the law, merely daring Congress and the courts to stop him. And the judiciary? JD Vance, that eager footman of the new regime, has already declared that Trump may simply ignore the courts altogether.

The very mechanism of legal enforcement -- the federal marshals -- reports to the attorney general, who in turn serves at the pleasure of Trump. And who might that be? None other than Pam Bondi, whose record of fealty to Trump is unimpeachable. She is not investigating him, of course -- far from it. Her attentions are directed instead at those who once dared to scrutinize him: the FBI agents who had the audacity to retrieve classified documents after he spirited them away to Mar-a-Lago. Documents left so carelessly exposed that any sufficiently enterprising Russian agent could have strolled in, pressed a button on a conveniently placed copier, and walked out with a tidy bundle of state secrets.

If Trump defies court orders en masse, if this is not a constitutional crisis, the term has no meaning. The executive openly disregards the legislative and judicial branches. The law exists only insofar as it serves his purpose.

Consider, for instance, the small matter of federal payments. A judge orders the administration, fronted by Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, to continue them. Yet, suspicions loom as payments are delayed, constricting farmers in the Midwest, among others. Speculation grows that the funds might instead be redirected -- where else? -- to tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. One must admire the symmetry of it all: wealth hoarded at the top while those at the bottom gasp for air. A republic’s last, struggling breath.

And how did we arrive at this perfect storm of corruption? Let us tip our hats to the Supreme Court -- specifically, the five reliable Republican justices who, in Citizens United, pronounced bribery to be perfectly legal. If a billionaire wishes to purchase a president, who are we to object? And so, with a mere $270 million -- chump change in the grand scheme of things -- Musk has secured his own personal strongman.

But what, precisely, does he receive in return? The spoils are many, and the list is long:

  • The FAA administrator who dared to investigate SpaceX? Removed.
  • The Department of Justice’s inquiry into Musk’s dubious financial dealings? A relic of the past.
  • The USAID Inspector General’s review of Starlink? Terminated.
  • The Pentagon’s concerns over Musk’s foreign contacts -- perhaps even with Putin himself? Vanished.
  • The USDA’s investigation into grotesque animal abuse at Musk’s brain-implant company? Discarded.
  • The National Transportation Safety Board’s probes into Tesla? Likely dead.
  • The EPA, once a thorn in Tesla’s side for its numerous environmental violations, is being systematically dismantled.
  • The National Labor Relations Board’s 17 active cases against Tesla and SpaceX? Likely to be rendered moot.
  • The FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Department of Defense, all once engaged in various levels of oversight, are now little more than paper tigers.
What remains is a government for sale. For Musk, that $277 million was not an expense, but an investment -- one that will yield dividends in the billions. Billions from where? From you, me, and every US Taxpayer. What an ROI, eh? A mere pittance to secure absolute impunity and we foot the bill. How nice.

And so here we are, at the inevitable conclusion of a long and sordid process: the rich will buy, the powerful will sell, and the people -- the great, ungovernable masses -- will be told they still live in a democracy.

Welcome to James Madison’s worst nightmare.

Thanks a lot, Republicans.
Click to expand...
You dipshits STILL have no idea what you lost do you? And you think you're the educated ones. Hilarious
 
Nordberg said:
Granting him too much power? He is seizing it. He is doing what he wants and defying us to stop him. So far the courts are doing the right thing. Can they fight off the unhinged wanna-be dictator for 4 years?
Click to expand...
maybe if you people weren't such assholes you might have won but you didn't. Now sit down and shut the fuck up. You idiots should try to figure out why you lost but you morons don't seem interested in that.
 
Yakuda said:
maybe if you people weren't such assholes you might have won but you didn't. Now sit down and shut the fuck up. You idiots should try to figure out why you lost but you morons don't seem interested in that.
Click to expand...

Morons? That's rich, because if you weren't such a fucktangled fuckwit you'd know that when someone wins an election by a paltry 1.5% victory margin, (or any margin, for that matter) he or she is not exempt from scrutiny and criticism. And, proving your hypocrisy, you sure as hell didn't raise that point when Biden beat Trump's ass by a much wider margin than he beat a black woman who was only in the race for about 3 months. Tsk tsk fucking tsk.

But you are sooooo stupid, this goes right over your pin sized head.
 
Publius said:
After nearly two and a half centuries, American democracy teeters on the brink of collapse, not from outside invasion or some ideological revolution, but from within -- hollowed out and ready to be replaced by a model more familiar to Budapest or Moscow than to Philadelphia. The transformation is nearly complete: a government once bound by law and tradition now bends to the whims of a man who openly mocks both.

For those of you who don't quite understand, Democracy and tyranny have an inverse relationship. The degree you have one, to the same degree you have less of the other, but it's not a linear relationship, at a given point, as democracy weakens, the linear scale of the inverse, it snaps and then you have full on tyranny, or we could just as easily call it Fascism, but Tyranny may, or may not, come with the other aspects of fascism. In Trump's case, it could easily rise to fascism, given his commonality with it, that is, if we are not careful about granting this man too much power. It does seem, however, that Republicans in the Congress and Senate are rolling over to his every whim and fancy. This is deeply concerting to any freedom loving human, and it should be to you, too, conservative or liberal. Thing is, giving Trump this much power is incredibly dangerous, because he has no moral compass, and I think there is overwhelming evidence to that point. He will easily justify his actions with self serving rationalizations in pursuit of total power. I wouldn't put it past Trump in a New York minute.

I make that claim (of the 'snap to tyranny' from the linear decline of democracy's inverse relationship) because history is replete with examples of it, to wit (courtesy CoPilot):

The legislature? As I mentioned, above, it appears to be a supine assembly of Republican lackeys, every senator and congressman content to abandon their constitutional duties and mutter in unison: Trump shall have whatever he desires. The executive? A president who no longer pretends to obey the law, merely daring Congress and the courts to stop him. And the judiciary? JD Vance, that eager footman of the new regime, has already declared that Trump may simply ignore the courts altogether.

The very mechanism of legal enforcement -- the federal marshals -- reports to the attorney general, who in turn serves at the pleasure of Trump. And who might that be? None other than Pam Bondi, whose record of fealty to Trump is unimpeachable. She is not investigating him, of course -- far from it. Her attentions are directed instead at those who once dared to scrutinize him: the FBI agents who had the audacity to retrieve classified documents after he spirited them away to Mar-a-Lago. Documents left so carelessly exposed that any sufficiently enterprising Russian agent could have strolled in, pressed a button on a conveniently placed copier, and walked out with a tidy bundle of state secrets.

If Trump defies court orders en masse, if this is not a constitutional crisis, the term has no meaning. The executive openly disregards the legislative and judicial branches. The law exists only insofar as it serves his purpose.

Consider, for instance, the small matter of federal payments. A judge orders the administration, fronted by Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, to continue them. Yet, suspicions loom as payments are delayed, constricting farmers in the Midwest, among others. Speculation grows that the funds might instead be redirected -- where else? -- to tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. One must admire the symmetry of it all: wealth hoarded at the top while those at the bottom gasp for air. A republic’s last, struggling breath.

And how did we arrive at this perfect storm of corruption? Let us tip our hats to the Supreme Court -- specifically, the five reliable Republican justices who, in Citizens United, pronounced bribery to be perfectly legal. If a billionaire wishes to purchase a president, who are we to object? And so, with a mere $270 million -- chump change in the grand scheme of things -- Musk has secured his own personal strongman.

But what, precisely, does he receive in return? The spoils are many, and the list is long:

  • The FAA administrator who dared to investigate SpaceX? Removed.
  • The Department of Justice’s inquiry into Musk’s dubious financial dealings? A relic of the past.
  • The USAID Inspector General’s review of Starlink? Terminated.
  • The Pentagon’s concerns over Musk’s foreign contacts -- perhaps even with Putin himself? Vanished.
  • The USDA’s investigation into grotesque animal abuse at Musk’s brain-implant company? Discarded.
  • The National Transportation Safety Board’s probes into Tesla? Likely dead.
  • The EPA, once a thorn in Tesla’s side for its numerous environmental violations, is being systematically dismantled.
  • The National Labor Relations Board’s 17 active cases against Tesla and SpaceX? Likely to be rendered moot.
  • The FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Department of Defense, all once engaged in various levels of oversight, are now little more than paper tigers.
What remains is a government for sale. For Musk, that $277 million was not an expense, but an investment -- one that will yield dividends in the billions. Billions from where? From you, me, and every US Taxpayer. What an ROI, eh? A mere pittance to secure absolute impunity and we foot the bill. How nice.

And so here we are, at the inevitable conclusion of a long and sordid process: the rich will buy, the powerful will sell, and the people -- the great, ungovernable masses -- will be told they still live in a democracy.

Welcome to James Madison’s worst nightmare.

Thanks a lot, Republicans.
Click to expand...
How many times do these dumb fucks have to be told? We are not, and never have been, A DEMOCRACY.
 
countryboy said:
How many times do these dumb fucks have to be told? We are not, and never have been, A DEMOCRACY.
Click to expand...
How many times do we have to dumb the conversation down low enough for right wingers' pin sized brains to understand that 'Democracy' is a broad, descriptive term (it also has a narrow meaning, as well) where Democracy describes, and Republic denotes the structure. As such, they are not mutually exclusive terms?

Seem to me, that, in my entire 73 years on this earth, I never recalled Republicans making this argument, that is, not until they hadn't won the popular vote but twice in 30 something years, and since they have been enacting voter suppression laws in a number of red states.

www.britannica.com

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation | Britannica

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation: Is democracy the most appropriate name for a large-scale representative system such as that of the early United States? At the end of the 18th century, the history of the terms whose literal meaning is “rule by the people”—democracy and...
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com

Even among his contemporaries, Madison’s refusal to apply the term democracy to representative governments, even those based on broad electorates, was aberrant.​

The term 'democracy' has both broad and parochial definition. Given that you are making a distinction between Republic (which also has a broad and parochial definition) and Democracy, you are therefore using the term in the parochial (narrow) sense.

The United States is a 'democracy' in the general sense of the word, not the parochial sense, to which you are referring. It is also a Republic in the parochial sense of the word. So, Democracy (broad sense), Republic (narrow sense).

We vote in run offs, primaries, and caucuses.
We vote for representatives.
We vote for senators.
We vote for governors
We vote for mayors, government officials from municipal to state levels in every state and municipality in the United States.
We vote for ballot initiatives in many states and municipalities.

In ALL of the above elections, hundreds, if not thousands of them, they are 'majority wins', i.e., 'direct democracy'.

In all of those elections, only one, a combined ticket for the President, and the Vice president, do we vote for electors to pick the president via the electoral college count.

I'd say that qualifies America to be called a democracy. That, in no way, negates any valid criticism of the democracy, but a democracy, nevertheless.

A democracy is often a term referring to....

1. A nation where citizens enjoy rights.
2. A nation where citizens enjoy certain freedoms, of speech, free assembly, freedom to work, be self-employed, to achieve one's aims, etc.
3. Freedom of religion, or freedom from religion
4. The right to vote once one is 18.
5. A nation with a government of elected leaders, either directly or indirectly.
6. A Republic, Federal, Constitutional, or otherwise, which is, essentially, a government of elected leaders, indirectly or directly, whose legislation is enacted by the elected representatives constituting a 'representative democracy' generally under the governance of a constitution.

Definition of republic


1a(1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government
b(1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument​
Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.​

Not to mention:

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22


Democracy in the United States.

The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government. Voting is one way to participate in our democracy. Citizens can also contact their officials when they want to support or change a law. Voting in an election and contacting our elected officials are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy.

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule.

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22

The descriptive term would be 'democracy'. America is both a Constitutional Republic, in form, and a Representative democracy by description.

Therefore, to all the right wing fuckwits in the land, the terms are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, guys like Mark Levin are dumb as shit.
 
Publius said:
How many times do we have to dumb the conversation down low enough for right wingers' pin sized brains to understand that 'Democracy' is a broad, descriptive term (it also has a narrow meaning, as well) where Democracy describes, and Republic denotes the structure. As such, they are not mutually exclusive terms?

Seem to me, that, in my entire 73 years on this earth, I never recalled Republicans making this argument, that is, not until they hadn't won the popular vote but twice in 30 something years, and since they have been enacting voter suppression laws in a number of red states.

www.britannica.com

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation | Britannica

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation: Is democracy the most appropriate name for a large-scale representative system such as that of the early United States? At the end of the 18th century, the history of the terms whose literal meaning is “rule by the people”—democracy and...
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com

Even among his contemporaries, Madison’s refusal to apply the term democracy to representative governments, even those based on broad electorates, was aberrant.​

The term 'democracy' has both broad and parochial definition. Given that you are making a distinction between Republic (which also has a broad and parochial definition) and Democracy, you are therefore using the term in the parochial (narrow) sense.

The United States is a 'democracy' in the general sense of the word, not the parochial sense, to which you are referring. It is also a Republic in the parochial sense of the word. So, Democracy (broad sense), Republic (narrow sense).

We vote in run offs, primaries, and caucuses.
We vote for representatives.
We vote for senators.
We vote for governors
We vote for mayors, government officials from municipal to state levels in every state and municipality in the United States.
We vote for ballot initiatives in many states and municipalities.

In ALL of the above elections, hundreds, if not thousands of them, they are 'majority wins', i.e., 'direct democracy'.

In all of those elections, only one, a combined ticket for the President, and the Vice president, do we vote for electors to pick the president via the electoral college count.

I'd say that qualifies America to be called a democracy. That, in no way, negates any valid criticism of the democracy, but a democracy, nevertheless.

A democracy is often a term referring to....

1. A nation where citizens enjoy rights.
2. A nation where citizens enjoy certain freedoms, of speech, free assembly, freedom to work, be self-employed, to achieve one's aims, etc.
3. Freedom of religion, or freedom from religion
4. The right to vote once one is 18.
5. A nation with a government of elected leaders, either directly or indirectly.
6. A Republic, Federal, Constitutional, or otherwise, which is, essentially, a government of elected leaders, indirectly or directly, whose legislation is enacted by the elected representatives constituting a 'representative democracy' generally under the governance of a constitution.

Definition of republic


1a(1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government
b(1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument​
Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.​

Not to mention:

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22


Democracy in the United States.

The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government. Voting is one way to participate in our democracy. Citizens can also contact their officials when they want to support or change a law. Voting in an election and contacting our elected officials are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy.

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule.

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22

The descriptive term would be 'democracy'. America is both a Constitutional Republic, in form, and a Representative democracy by description.

Therefore, to all the right wing fuckwits in the land, the terms are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, guys like Mark Levin are dumb as shit.
Click to expand...
The word democracy appears nowhere in the founding documents. Democracy is a form of government, we do not adhere to that form of government. We are a representative republic, it's spelled out in the constitution, you may not like it, you may ignore it, but that doesn't make any less true. And for a pea brain like you to refer to Mark Levin as a dummy, is just fucking delicious. What a fucking retard you are. Get used to losing, because that's where you're headed.
 
Publius said:
Morons? That's rich, because if you weren't such a fucktangled fuckwit you'd know that when someone wins an election by a paltry 1.5% victory margin, (or any margin, for that matter) he or she is not exempt from scrutiny and criticism. And, proving your hypocrisy, you sure as hell didn't raise that point when Biden beat Trump's ass by a much wider margin than he beat a black woman who was only in the race for about 3 months. Tsk tsk fucking tsk.

But you are sooooo stupid, this goes right over your pin sized head.
Click to expand...
You're the only idiot here as you STILL can't figure out why you cockroaches lost. You're a.fucking idiot
 
countryboy said:
The word democracy appears nowhere in the founding documents.
Click to expand...
The word 'beautiful country' does not appear in any of the founding documents, does that mean America is not a beautiful country?

NO!

Your logic SUFFERS.

countryboy said:
Democracy is a form of government, we do not adhere to that form of government. We are a representative republic, it's spelled out in the constitution, you may not like it, you may ignore it, but that doesn't make any less true. And for a pea brain like you to refer to Mark Levin as a dummy, is just fucking delicious. What a fucking retard you are. Get used to losing, because that's where you're headed.
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In the halls of academia, in every political speech given by both repubs and dems, at every podium where America was glorified, for all of my 73 years, America was called the descriptive term, 'Democracy'. It's called that because we have universal suffrage. the term 'Republic' is not enough to denote suffrage, because the term simply means a government of either appointed or elected leaders. If it has elected leaders, and elected representatives, then it becomes a representative democracy. All western nations are variants of representative democracies, aka 'liberal democracies' (liberal meaning freedom of speech and all of the BOR guarantees) and the term 'democracy', is enough to mean the same thing. That we are a constitutional republic , well both terms are not mutually exclusive, we are a constitutional republic within a democratic framework, to be precise. Now, I've given you the authoritative links by Encyclopedia Britannica, whose contents are composed of over 100 scholars, and the government's own website, which REFUTE you dumbass claim. And you know what, the only time 'some' Republicans started spewing this bullshit that America is not a democracy, was when you guys suddenly realized that you haven't won the popular vote only twice in 30 something years. Viola, the truth bites you in the ass. So the fact of the matter is that you are a dumbass fuckwit moron.

Oh yes, Mark Levin is a moron, on that question, there is no debate. Why? Because guys like him have poisoned your brain with this idiocy. Your mind is mush,. a bucket of thought-terminating cliches. now fuck off.
 
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Publius said:
Uh, not in a meaningful way, dumbass.
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Suddenly you want to qualify your "engagement"?.

Some idiot wrote this:

"I'm sorry, I regret to inform you I do not engage with morons."

Notice "meaningfully" doesn't appear anywhere. Fucking imbecile
 
Yakuda said:
You're the only idiot here as you STILL can't figure out why you cockroaches lost. You're a.fucking idiot
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I know why we lost and that is irrelevant to the point you have failed to refute, that Trump is fair game for criticism, especially since he won by only a paltry 1.5%.

And he won because several million muslims stayed home (or voted third party, such as Jill Stein) owing to Biden's not taking a strong stand against Israel's overreach in Gaza, all of whom usually vote for dems. We know this because the numbers in the highly muslim populated states, (Michigan, etc) prove it, not to mention the total dem vote was a few million less than Biden's vote, so we know they stayed home and that is the logical reason.

But, what is also logical is that Trump's paltry 1.5% victory margin does not prove a majority of Americans want his policies.

They never have in the past, and they never will. We will cream you guys in 2026 midterms, count on it.

So, suck on that, you dumb shit.
 
Publius said:
How many times do we have to dumb the conversation down low enough for right wingers' pin sized brains to understand that 'Democracy' is a broad, descriptive term (it also has a narrow meaning, as well) where Democracy describes, and Republic denotes the structure. As such, they are not mutually exclusive terms?

Seem to me, that, in my entire 73 years on this earth, I never recalled Republicans making this argument, that is, not until they hadn't won the popular vote but twice in 30 something years, and since they have been enacting voter suppression laws in a number of red states.

www.britannica.com

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation | Britannica

Democracy - Representation, Equality, Participation: Is democracy the most appropriate name for a large-scale representative system such as that of the early United States? At the end of the 18th century, the history of the terms whose literal meaning is “rule by the people”—democracy and...
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com

Even among his contemporaries, Madison’s refusal to apply the term democracy to representative governments, even those based on broad electorates, was aberrant.​

The term 'democracy' has both broad and parochial definition. Given that you are making a distinction between Republic (which also has a broad and parochial definition) and Democracy, you are therefore using the term in the parochial (narrow) sense.

The United States is a 'democracy' in the general sense of the word, not the parochial sense, to which you are referring. It is also a Republic in the parochial sense of the word. So, Democracy (broad sense), Republic (narrow sense).

We vote in run offs, primaries, and caucuses.
We vote for representatives.
We vote for senators.
We vote for governors
We vote for mayors, government officials from municipal to state levels in every state and municipality in the United States.
We vote for ballot initiatives in many states and municipalities.

In ALL of the above elections, hundreds, if not thousands of them, they are 'majority wins', i.e., 'direct democracy'.

In all of those elections, only one, a combined ticket for the President, and the Vice president, do we vote for electors to pick the president via the electoral college count.

I'd say that qualifies America to be called a democracy. That, in no way, negates any valid criticism of the democracy, but a democracy, nevertheless.

A democracy is often a term referring to....

1. A nation where citizens enjoy rights.
2. A nation where citizens enjoy certain freedoms, of speech, free assembly, freedom to work, be self-employed, to achieve one's aims, etc.
3. Freedom of religion, or freedom from religion
4. The right to vote once one is 18.
5. A nation with a government of elected leaders, either directly or indirectly.
6. A Republic, Federal, Constitutional, or otherwise, which is, essentially, a government of elected leaders, indirectly or directly, whose legislation is enacted by the elected representatives constituting a 'representative democracy' generally under the governance of a constitution.

Definition of republic


1a(1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government
b(1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument​
Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.​

Not to mention:

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22


Democracy in the United States.

The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government. Voting is one way to participate in our democracy. Citizens can also contact their officials when they want to support or change a law. Voting in an election and contacting our elected officials are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy.

www.theatlantic.com

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule.

[It is a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #22

The descriptive term would be 'democracy'. America is both a Constitutional Republic, in form, and a Representative democracy by description.

Therefore, to all the right wing fuckwits in the land, the terms are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, guys like Mark Levin are dumb as shit.
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Go outside.
Find a rock.
Talk to it instead of country boy.
It will be a more productive use of your time.
 
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