I have a new essay on a long-standing topic, the phrase “we are a republic, not a democracy,” up at Liberal Currents: Is the United States of America a Republic, and not a Democracy?

While a lot of the discussion will be familiar to OTB readers, it is my fullest attempt to outline the basic problem with the phrase, as backed by some ongoing research I hope to further expand upon in the future.

I also wrote it to dovetail with our pending 250th birthday.