This “not a democracy, a republic” crap is becoming more and more popular on the right. They’re not even trying to hide the authoritarianism and fascism any more. They’re now openly saying they don’t support democracy.
It’s literally “democracy = Democrats” and “a republic = republican” to them, simple as.
The Democrats should rename themselves the “Freedom Liberty” party just to fuck with em. Take back some of their words.
We already have the Libertarian party, which is the actual Freedom Liberty party.
Libertarians are more interested in simping for our corporate overlords and removing the age of consent.
No, republic just means that the role of head of state isn’t hereditary. Lots of dictatorships are republics, some democracies are as well. The actual political system of the USA is representative democracy (in theory at least).
The fact that these terms are so muddled in the minds of the average American is completely deliberate, because it makes it so much easier for them to subvert US democracy when people have been told that the US is not one.
There are a couple definitions. One I’ve heard most is a republic has a citizen as head of state, which disqualifies both monarchies and military dictatorships. Another is that the head of state is elected or nominated, which disqualifies non-representative systems entirely.
I just looked it up and did not find a concise definition. According to the German bpb even dictatorships can be republics.
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/lexikon-in-einfacher-sprache/250057/republik/
No, it’s not. They have a hereditary head of state who enforces his rule with control of the military.
It’s not just a Republic its a people’s Republic.
So you know like way better. That’s why they don’t need elections it already says it belongs to the people
Some grade 9 ass shit. A republic IS a democratic structure of government. It’s representative democracy.
This is terrifying.
If the American electorate was slightly less stupid, I’d be ecstatic, because he made himself effectively kryptonite to reasonable, intelligent people with that statement.
Unfortunately, the American electorate is, on average, that stupid.
What’s worse is that the average is weighted further toward stupid by gerrymandering. They’re right that the game is rigged, it’s just not rigged against them.
He said it in 2016 though and has still been re-elected and elected speaker of the house regardless. Hopefully this has an effect on the republican party at large though now. It might fly where he’s from, but it won’t in the US at large. We just need to make sure people know what they’re voting for.
I work with a few atheist/agnostic republicans that are incredibly confused right now.
They treat the Constitution like they do their bible.
They don’t read it.
If they do read it, they just read the bits they agree with.
If they read the parts that don’t fit their desired narrative, they engage in mental gymnastics to reinterpret what was written to fit their desires.
Edit:
Jefferson’s reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion — only of establishment on the national level. The letter contains the phrase “wall of separation between church and state,” which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: “Separation of church and state.”
Which led to the Establishment Clause…
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…
And also The point of Article 6 wherein no religious test is to be given to hold office.
Better?
From article VI (3rd paragraph)
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executige and judicial officers, both of the united states and of the several states, shall be bound by oath of affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
It literally couldn’t be any clearer. I guess he’s the shittiest constitutional lawyer ever. But nobody will care. They eat up his arguing from authority fallacy bullshit
It’s an easy game to play actually. Strict contructionists will only recognize discourse that can be understood in 1790, or whichever relevant time. They use dictionaries from that time and the writings of the amerikan founders to make their points. You won’t easily find anything from that era that implies “religion” is anything other than Christianity and it’s various sects. To assert otherwise would be to legislate without congress. So they can argue that excluding non-Christians and non-Protestants is in line with the intentions of the authors regardless of article 6.
Is it a perfect line of thinking without contradictions? Of course not, but neither is the counter idea that America was designed to accommodate non-Christians.
I don’t want to be that guy, but in fairness, ol’ boy didn’t actually say “biblical republic” (He just wheeled out the old “constitutional Republic” bit).
Doesn’t make this any better, but I want to be sure we criticize with facts.
