Not long ago, I took issue with the cries — by many on the left — that virtually anything right of center was a “threat to democracy.” I noted how such claims were more or less conflating “democracy” with “Democrats” because the main driver of such claims is not concern about a system of governance but rather about the preservation of power.
I’m going to take that a step further now, though, and point out the utter flaw (some might call it BS) in the notion that things — any things — pose a “threat to our democracy.” No, my friends, there isn’t a thing that poses a threat to our democracy — or your democracy, or mine — because we don’t live in a democracy. Never have, never will.
To restate the obvious, we live in a constitutional republic. Now, there are democratic principles that undergird said republic, but we don’t live in a democracy, and anyone claiming — or advocating — otherwise is, quite frankly, full of it.
So why do they do it? Why sound the alarm about “threats to our democracy” if ours is not a democracy?
Because it sounds dire, and they’re banking on your ignorance. If they were sincere in their concern, they’d note how whatever it is is a “threat to our republic” — but that might make people stop and ponder the actual definitions of “democratic” and “republican.”
And we can’t have folks actually using their noggins now, can we?
