So, long-time readers know of my interest in the rhetorical assertion that the US is “a republic, not a democracy.” Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is a major proponent of this phrase (see here, for example). Given Lee’s increasingly obsequious obeisance to Trump, it is clear that he does not respect the ideals of representative democracy.
A tweet from this week makes the point.
The caption reads” A law enforcement officer points a crowd control weapon at a protester in Chicago on Tuesday.”
So, Mike Lee’s version of a “republic” includes using the power of the state to repress those who dare to protest the administration in power. I would note that the man being harassed has brown skin, which I guess justifies the weapon in his face all the more.
I would note that I do not know exactly what is happening in that photo apart from the caption, and neither does Mike Lee. But the fact that he thinks that such an image looks like a “constitutional republic” is him saying the quiet part out loud: he is all in on the authoritarian deployment of power if it is done for his political side. Were I to pick an image to represent my ideals related to democracy, it would not have anything to do with a weapon pointed at someone’s face.
The source of the image is likely this Chicago Sun-Times piece, Feds ram SUV after chase down residential street in Chicago, then tear-gas crowd, the contents of which do not cover federal law enforcement with glory. I will note that the piece does not provide any specific information about the image.
I have flirted with a larger project on the subject of the phrase “a republic, not a democracy”, which included a round of research in digital archives of US newspapers going back to the 1790s through to the present. I have yet to find anyone who claims that we are a republic, and not a democracy, who does so in a way that would expand rights or create public benefits (unless they are simply making a distinction between direct and representative democracy).
I have seen usages of the phrase to defend states’ rights on the slavery question. It was used to defend segregation. I have seen it used as part of various Red Scares. It was an especially popular phrase to criticize the New Deal. It is a frequent line of defense of the minority-enhancing aspects of the Electoral College. It is constantly used to describe majority rule as mob rule, and therefore, anything popular enough to get majority support is suspect (i.e., don’t tax the wealthy).
There are examples of perhaps amusing concerns, like decrying federal seat-belt mandates. But those are rare. The main targets are anyone who wants to use the power of the federal government in a way that expands the rights of the oppressed to the detriment of those who benefit from that oppression or policies that have redistributionist elements. It is not a phrase that is used by a variety of actors for different purposes. My research to date suggests it is a phrase used by those who want to restrict the power of citizens and limit rights.
Lee’s usage above is therefore representative, even if it is more stark than many examples I could cite.
To put it more directly: every example I have found of someone who wants to describe the US solely as a “republic” and not a “democracy” is doing so to defend some version of minority rule (or as a means of defending an unjust status quo, such as segregation, which benefited a specific majority population). I am not saying it has never been used to defend rights or to decry minority rule in the history of the US, but if it has, I haven’t found it yet, and I have been looking (if anyone has such an example, please share!). The only usage that I can find of people who don’t use the phrase to assert the dominance of the minority are those who go on to point out that we don’t have a direct democracy (where everypone votes and everything is governed by the majority of the population), but instead have representative democracy (wherein we elect people to govern on our behalf).
