I feel the Skepticism you hear from some when they seem utterly baffled that people would actually believe a second Trump term would bring authoritarian and anti democratic backsliding is rooted in, among other things, 1) not realizing that if something like that occurs, it’s not gonna have…
…the dramatic sweep or bang of a March on Rome, it’s gonna feel a lot more “normal” than that and therefore easier to dismiss by many elite pundits 2) ask an older Black voter if it’s hard to believe that America may no longer be a democracy at some point in its modern history.
For most of its history, America hasn’t been a democracy, by any meaningful definition of the term!
This isn’t some It Can’t Happen Here shit, in a way, it’s already happened. It just may not have directly affected you.
Ask the people of the American territories if they feel that way. Ask the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, or American Samoa if they think that the United States is a democracy.
It's a slogan popularized by the far-right John Birch Society to justify the anti-democratic features of the US political system (the Electoral College, voter suppression, etc)
It's stressing the idea we have representatives making (most) laws, like there was never a national vote on Obamacare or whatever. A bunch of states actually do have direct democracy for some stuff - like all those Proposition Whatevers in California - which is completely ignored.
They're basically saying this isn't the perfect Athenian democracy, which is true but not the same thing as not a democracy at all and not particularly helpful. I mean, at various times even the Athenians had some representation, both through sortition and through elections.
I don't mean they're literally thinking about Athens - just this idea that "democracy" is strictly "everyone votes on everything", ignoring the fact that very few systems are like that for very long. Even small towns have school boards and township councils and whatnot making most decisions.
Most of these people are just spewing whatever nonsense they can come up with that they think justifies their oppression of others whose views/color/sex/religion etc they don’t like.
That’s the whole story.
Bigots bullshiting is what it is.
That’s the same with almost every democracy. The only one I’ve ever heard of that engages in a lot of direct democracy is Switzerland.
I find it hard to believe that many of those who say America is a republic not a democracy have a clue what they are saying.
I almost always see it being used for "I'm smart and know how stuff really works, whereas you are a stupid rube who should shut up" type conversational purposes - for me it rankles because I'm a "I can't stop explaining the thing" person, basically allergic to oversimplified statements.
