“Republic, Democracy, or Democratic Republic?” Sydney Williams
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Throughout most of the long history of man, the purpose of a life was simply to survive and procreate. Governments were formed as people began to live in communities. Republics and democracies were improvements on what had come before. Both have as their basis “people.” The word “republic” is derived from the Latin phrase “res publica,” the people’s concern. The word “democracy” stems from two Greek words, “demos,” meaning the people and “kratia,” meaning power or rule. Both are defined as forms of government in which ultimate power is invested in the people through a government run by their elected representatives, chosen either directly or indirectly. Both are in contrast to what had been the norm for most people over the millennia – large numbers controlled or enslaved by monarchial governments, which could be benevolent but more often were malevolent and autocratic.
But there are differences between republics and democracies. The latter implies rule by a simple majority, so that minority rights may be abridged, or over-ruled, by majority vote, whereas a republic relies on a written constitution that protects the natural rights of its citizens, including the rights of minorities. While autocracies are tyrannies by a minority, democracies devolve into a tyranny of the majority. Republics are less efficient, which can lead to frustration. If division is broad, the consequence can be the birth of multiple parties, followed by anarchy. Republics, better than democracies, protect the rights of all citizens. Apart from small towns, democracies have never lasted. The first known democracy was developed by Athenians and lasted from about 500 BC to circa 300 BC. Their history was known to the Founders. In an 1814 letter to John Taylor, John Adams wrote: “Remember, democracies never last long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” Alexander Hamilton wrote, “Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Our Founders created a Republic, as the apocryphal story of Benjamin Franklin attests, with its purpose of providing, as our Declaration of Independence reads, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But our Country has begun to doff the mantle of republicanism and don the robes of democracy. In 1913, the 17th Amendment was passed, which allowed for direct election of Senators, rather than to have them chosen by states’ legislatures. In 2013, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) adopted what was termed the “nuclear option” of eliminating the 60-vote rule on executive branch nominations and federal judicial appointments, excluding Supreme Court appointees. In April 2017, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed a simple majority to end debate on Supreme Court appointees. Disappointed and in disbelief over the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and Donald Trump succeeded in the Electoral College, Democrats urged the direct election of a President – doing away with the Electoral College, a critical filament attaching ourselves to republicanism. For one thing, the Electoral College provides a defense against regionalism. For another, it pushes parties to build coalitions. Thus far, fourteen states and the District of Columbia, with 183 Electoral College votes, have passed bills and signed a pact that would grant their electoral college votes to whoever won the national popular vote, regardless of how the people in their state voted. (The Nevada legislature passed such a bill, but it was vetoed by Democrat Governor Steve Sisolak.) All these actions have in common one thing – a diminution of minority interests.
Democracies have other weaknesses, one highlighted by Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh: “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury,”…leading to “a loose fiscal policy.” We’re not there yet, but we’re closer. The Tax Policy Center estimates that forty-four percent of employed Americans did not pay any federal income tax in 2018, two percentage points more than in 2017. While those people do pay payroll taxes, excise taxes and state taxes, Professor Tyler’s words serve as a warning to a Western world fixated on increasing welfare payments and benefitting from abnormally low interest rates, rates that encourage borrowings and discourage savings. Governments are inclined to spend – for necessities such as defense, roads, schools and the welfare of the truly needed, but they also want to make life easier for their constituents – to purchase their votes, if you will. Constraints on spending simply do not exist – or will not until the debt burden becomes so heavy that the taxes required cause people to revolt. For the fiscal year 2018, 61.5% of the $4.1 trillion federal budget went to mandatory items, like transfer payments, while 7.6% went to net interest. That left only 31% for defense and other discretionary items, like education, science, veteran’s benefits, transportation, space and energy and the environment. If interest costs were a more normal three percent, interest expense, as a percent of the budget, would be fifteen percent. The Federal Reserve may have temporary control over the cost of money, but ultimately markets win. The fiscal deficit this year is expected to top a trillion dollars. Excessive debt leads, ultimately, to a cheapened currency, higher inflation and higher interest rates. Wisdom born of prudence has been subsumed by greed for political power. Continued government expenditures in excess of revenues, and abetted by artificially low interest rates, are a recipe for a day of reckoning.
Wealthy, coastal elites ensure a majority by including minorities who are dependent on their largesse – minorities identified by skin color, gender, sexual preference or religion. It is segregation of the electorate by identity. It is diversity in all but what is most important – ideas. They are patronizing toward those who disagree with them and hypocritical in passing laws for which they are not accountable. They are not interested in political philosophies outside their slipstream. They have enlisted the aid of universities, who they have helped through student loan programs, which assure those institutions a growing stream of students. Universities have responded by impinging free speech in the name of political correctness. As well, a republic’s and a democracy’s last line of defense is the media, many of whom today, however, have been co-opted by the Left to support their programs. I am a straight, white, male Protestant living in Connecticut; yet, as a conservative in a “blue” state, I am a minority. Am I recognized as such? Of course not. No one has yet prevented me from saying or writing what I want, but I am not so naïve as to believe that as we become more polarized my rights may be denied. Already, I have been accused of being racist and homophobic.
So, are we still a republic, as Benjamin Franklin purportedly told the woman outside Constitutional Hall in July 1787? He said we would be, but only as long as we could keep it. And, as noted above, it is fraying at the edges. I believe we are, but less robust than we once were, perhaps a democratic republic? Our system is fragile. A diversity of ideas is discouraged. Our form of government is not well understood by most citizens. Schools no longer make a priority of teaching civics and history; politicians are self-serving, caring not for “the people,” as they proclaim, but for the next election. Too much hatred fills the air.We should take nothing for granted. Republics are easy to lose and almost impossible to rebuild.
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