If Democracy Is Not “a Struggle To Advance Particular and Controversial Political Ideas,” Then What Is It?
It’s sloppy thinking to keep framing the problems that face American politics as a crisis in democracy. We are not a democracy. We are a republic and the difference is profound. Both George W. Bush and Donald Trump won the presidency but lost the popular vote.
That would not have happened in a democracy, where the popular vote wins all contests
These were but two of five American presidents who failed the popularity contest, but both of them were controversial and both raised the question of whether a Republic matches our needs any longer. When asked what kind of government the Constitutional Congress had given us, a departing Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
Well, maybe we can and maybe it’s time for a change, but the Framers had quite a different question in mind
At the end of our revolutionary war, when decisions were made on such issues, the United States was essentially an aristocracy, much like the England it had defeated. Its Founding Fathers were…