During a recent meeting of the County Commissioners, one of the Commissioners made the following comment: “We do not live in a democracy. The majority does not rule in the United States. We are a representative republic.” 

Actually, Commissioner, we do live in a democracy.

Today, many democratic principles are being challenged. The commissioner’s comment came in the context of the school bond issue that passed in 2018 with almost 60 percent of the vote to support improving local school buildings. Going on five years later, not a single brick has been laid.

It’s true that our democracy isn’t perfect. When it was born in 1789, white male landowners ruled and were the only ones who could vote, but, importantly, our Constitution had a built-in system for improvement and amendment. Residents in territories became citizens when new states were established, and over many decades formerly enslaved people, women, and new citizens joined voting rolls. Twenty-seven amendments added during 234 years have molded our Constitution into a living document that reflects how we can best govern ourselves. 

It's also true that we don’t have a “direct democracy.” Democracy is a category with several variants. In simple terms, we live in a federal democratic republic. It is federal because power is shared among three levels of government (national, state, local); it is a republic because citizens empower representatives to make decisions on their behalf; and it is a democracy because the ultimate authority is vested in the people who have the means to control the government through their votes.

The framers of our Constitution warned that direct democracies are inherently unstable and lead to suppression of minority rights. They wanted to form a government that would combine elements of democracy and republicanism.

But our democracy is at a crossroads. While hearing a local official declare that the United States is not a democracy is worrisome, more troubling still is recognizing that a 'republic-not-democracy' theme has emerged as a talking point. What is happening?

A likely explanation is that the Republican party is increasingly eager to erase the democratic character of America's longstanding identity as a federal democratic republic. For example, testimony from the January 6 hearings shows that advisors to the former president knew that the people of the US elected President Biden. Yet they told a different story in order to undermine faith in our democratic elections.

Using this false narrative (widespread voter fraud has never materialized in American history), Republican-led states are taking deliberate measures to limit voter access such as shortening hours for early voting and enacting stricter voting identification requirements. Our own elected members of the North Carolina House of Representatives is sponsoring HB303, which would slash early voting days in North Carolina. In the 2022 election in Transylvania County, 5,952 people voted on election day, while 10,327 voted either absentee by mail or at one-stop early voting. With only half the early voting days, when and where will those 10,000 people vote next time? We should not overlook the fact that Jim Crow laws were used in North Carolina to curtail voter rights just a few decades ago.    

Democrats want to support and improve our democracy by involving as many people as possible in our governmental process. We want under-represented groups, such as women and minorities, to have an equal voice with those who have long enjoyed political power in shaping our great nation's destiny. We believe voting rights are fundamental rights because they protect all other rights. 

Joshua Keating, author of Democracy May Not Exist, writes that there are many in power who would like to do away with regular people having any sort of power or say over their lives. “Democracy is an idea that we really have to put a lot of care into and constantly be engaging with.”

He sketches an image that we are ageless midwives, birthing democracy anew. If you don’t renew it, if you don’t reinvent it, then it’s at risk of disappearing.

For some, the sunsetting of America's democratic experiment is progress; a non-democratic republic is preferable.  

For America's Democratic Party, this outcome would be a tragedy.

Resources:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0178

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0228

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-108hdoc94/pdf/CDOC-108hdoc94.pdf

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/republic-democracy-mike-lee-astra-taylor.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/10/1122089076/is-america-a-democracy-or-a-republic-yes-it-is

https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/principles-of-democracy/44151

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-9-2023?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email