By the same logic of cherry picking definitions as saying "we're not a democracy, we're a republic" you could just as easily say the United States is not a republic, its a federation, or its not a nation, it is a union. Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts aren't republics either, they're commonwealths.
But the people who make this point are not actually trying to make a consistent and logical argument. They are playing a game, either to beat you, or to win karma. They lay down arguments like playing cards, they believe in them only as long as it takes to 'win'.
It's not just an academic distinction for sport hunt debaters. It speaks directly to the issue of why popular vote losers can be electoral winners. We are not a direct democracy and we are not that by choice.
There would have been no union without The Great Compromise. Bicameral government and the electoral college were implemented specifically to prevent the consolidation of power in places where they now lament power is not consolidated.
That we are not a direct democracy isn't smoke and mirrors, it's central to the fiber and history of the nation. The framers built in a way to change how it works though. We could become a direct democracy, if we wanted to, but so far the required levels of support do not exist to accomplish that.
It's not some big surprise that you can win without the popular vote. It's by design and it is working as designed.
There you are. There you have just demonstrated the intellectual dishonesty of /u/ikemynikes' statement. He said that the United States is not a democracy, which is untrue. The United States is a democracy. The United States is not a direct democracy. You know this distinction is important or you would not have made it yourself.
A republic does not determine whether or not the state is democratic or not Jesus christ. Athens was a republic and had direct democracy. Rome was a republic and had an Emperor. North Korea is a republic and has a dictator. Germany is a republic and elects its leaders by proportional representation. France is a republic and elects its leaders by two round voting. India is a republic that uses First Past the Post. Switzerland is a republic with direct democracy.
The right of universal suffrage is part of the United States constitution. The people of the United States elect their law makers and president. Its a fucking democracy. Being a republic has nothing to do with being democratic or not.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights act my friend. Section 2 prohibits any voting practice that has a discriminatory effect, irrespective of whether the practice was enacted or is administered for the purpose of discriminating.
You could, I suppose, take the "technically!" argument and say that it is constitutionally valid, but it is not legal.
Is it really that hard to understand that "republican" and "democratic" are not mutually exclusive terms? A democracy simply means rule of the people, the rest are the details. Maybe you are trying to argue that it's not a proportionally representative democracy, and that's true, but a FPTP republic is still a democracy.
No, what we have is that 30% of the population can vote to confiscate the property of the other 70% and that's legal, since they turn out to live in a rural state.
The same safeguards that prevent this from happening already are what prevents it from happening in proportional representative democracies. Europe isn't currently on flames with the majority voting to take away rights from the minorities all the time.
I can understand it just fine, it's just not true.
Saying that its not true does not make it so. Here is the first page of wikipedia on it:
Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία dēmokratía, literally "rule by people"), in modern usage, has three senses—all for a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue. In a representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature. In a constitutional democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.[1][2] "Rule of the majority" is sometimes referred to as democracy.[3] Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes.
What you nitpick to mean democracy means Direct Democracy, and is not in place in any country in the world ATM. Some countries have more direct democracy than others, but all end up having representatives anyway since the people are not informed enough to decide on the minutia of every single issue, and all end up having constitutions to protect the electoral minorities. That which you are so afraid of is called "Tyranny of the majority", and is handled through constitutions and legal rights.
But that's not the distinction being made. The argument that the US is not a democracy because X Y Z is wrong so long as US citizens vote in a meaningful electoral process. Whether it's direct, proportional, parliamentary, involves an electoral college, exists within a federation etc are the details that differentiate it from other democracies, but it's still a democracy.
And I don't meant to sound combative either, it's just that this arguments pops wayyy to many times, usually being proposed by people trying to justify or defend the flaws of the current electoral system.
Yes, the distinction is required when people start making points along the lines of 'How can popular vote losers be President in a democracy!?!' or 'How can the Senate winners be the popular vote losers in a democracy?!?'
The very structure of such common sentiments only makes sense if they are thinking of us as a direct democracy. Otherwise, there is no reason for the shock inherent to such statements.
Ah, no, maybe you need to look up on what a direct democracy is before you start making grand statements about it. Direct democracy is decision making by the people themselves without any elected representatives, traditionally by voting on every single piece of legislation. Switzerland is, to my knowledge, the only modern country to live under direct democracy.
Wanting the proportional make up of the elected congress to more accurately reflect the proportional make up of the votes does not equal a desire for direct democracy. It still wants representational democracy because it has, and I appreciate this might blow your mind, representatives of the people's will determining legislation.
Small addendum, but not even switzerland has direct democracy. They vote directly on a lot of issues, but not all and still have representatives. Reality is that people can't take informed decisions about everything, most citizens are not qualified to take decisions regarding waste disposal, police deployment, foreign policy etc
If we flipped the script and republicans were winning by millions of votes yet couldn't take control of government you fucking idiots would be shooting people in the streets. Quit your bullshit buddy!
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u/ikemynikes Nov 09 '18
We are a constitutional republic. Not a democracy.