Democracy Or Republic?

 

“The US isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic.”

How many times have we heard this from election-denying insurrectionist liars?

Of course, like ALL authoritarians, they claim the right to unilaterally define terms and their own delusional views of reality. 

Orwell noted that the destruction of language is a totalitarian propaganda tactic. In “1984”, the Party’s Thought Police inquisitor O’Brien explains to Winston Smith between torture sessions, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words...Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

“Fake news”, “enemy of the people” and “Arbeit macht Frei” (Work sets you free.)

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – The Party (1984)

“Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening.” – Trump

Historian and author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes in “What Happens to Language When Authoritarianism Takes Hold: Resist the Perversion of Language and the Destruction of Meaning”,

So, authoritarians turn language into a weapon, as well as emptying key words in the political life of a nation such as patriotism, honor, and freedom of meaning. We are well on our way in America to what I call the "upside-down world of authoritarianism", where the rule of law gives way to rule by the lawless; where those who take our rights away and jail us pose as protectors of freedom; where the thugs who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6 are turned into patriots; and where "leadership means killing people," as Tucker Carlson put it recently, justifying Vladimir Putin's killing of Alexei Navalny.

This is why authoritarians like Trumpists, neo-Nazis, autocrats and tyrants HATE the very word “democracy”. That implies acceptance of election results, even when their Dear Leader loses.

Let’s go back to the “US isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic”, lie spewed by the Trump Cult. Why is it a lie? The definitions of those terms tell us it’s a lie.

American fascists need to REJECT established definitions and replace them with THEIR false meanings.

Any time a Trumpist tries to gaslight us we need to immediately call them out.

“Democracy” comes from Greek for “rule of the people”.  “Republic” comes from Latin for “rule of the people”. They are synonyms.

Here are the accepted Merriam-Webster definitions that fascists don’t want you to know:

Democracy:

1a: government by the people especially: rule of the majority

b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

2: a political unit that has a democratic government

3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S. from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy— C. M. Roberts

4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges 

Republic:

1a(1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president

(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government

b(1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law

(2): a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government

 

While we’re at it, here are a few other handy definitions to counter the radical Right lies and gaslighting:

Merriam-Webster- Coup d'état: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics, especially the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.

Merriam Webster- Terrorism: the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion

(FBI) Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.

Definitions matter. The essential meanings of words are on the front line in our resistance to tyranny. Don't let them weaponize language by destroying it.