Former President Donald Trump is being painted as a threat to democracy by President Joe Biden and his campaign surrogates, with CNN recently airing a segment claiming that many Trump supporters don’t believe the United States is a democracy. Instead, they believe it is a republic. However, this notion is based on a false dichotomy.
The United States is, in fact, both a constitutional republic and a democratic country. The authors of the Constitution deliberately designed the government to be a republic, with checks and balances to prevent the tyranny of majority rule. This was a response to the dangers of unbridled democracy, which James Madison described as a system where the majority can trample the rights of the minority.
The Constitution’s founders understood that a simple democracy, where the majority rules, can lead to mob rule and the erosion of individual rights. To prevent this, they created a system with a coequal branches of government, federalism, and the Electoral College, as well as a Senate where each state has an equal voice.
Today, it is clear which party is actively working to undermine these republican protections. The Democratic Party is pushing to pack the Supreme Court with ideological left-wingers, abolish the Electoral College, and abolish the Senate. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is committed to preserving the Constitution and the checks and balances that ensure individual rights and liberties are protected.
In the current election cycle, both parties are prone to hyperbole, but it is clear that the Democratic Party is more interested in promoting majoritarian rule and eroding the republic than the Republican Party.
