A Democratic republic

MAGA Republicans hate to use “Democratic” as an adjective. They won’t even say the United States is a “democracy.”

Trump’s election-denier Cleta Mitchell calls the United States “a constitutional republic.” Other Republicans say, “We are a constitutional republic. We are not a democracy.”

The Founding Fathers clearly said no: We are a democracy and a republic.

This MAGA myth is examined and exposed by Yale historian Akhil Reed Amar in “Founding Myths,” an essay in the newly published book Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.

He writes that the authors of the Constitution rejected any distinction between a democracy and a republic.

At the ratifying convention in Philadelphia, James Wilson explicitly equated a “republic” and a “democracy.” He called the Constitution “democratic” and “democratical.”

The first political party, created by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, was the Democratic-Republican party.

It’s not surprising that “democracy” and “Democratic” make MAGA Republicans squirm. Republicans have lost seven of the last nine popular votes for president. The last two to win the popular vote were Bushes: George H.W. in 1988 and George W. in 2004.

Republicans use the U.S. Senate to control the Supreme Court and retain power, just as North Carolina Republicans use gerrymandering and a servile state Supreme Court to stay in power.

The Trump-MAGA crowd even says state legislatures, Congress and the Vice President acting alone can overturn a state’s votes for President.

That’s a lie. It’s a deliberate corruption of the Constitution. It’s undemocratic – and un-American.

The Founding Fathers would have chased that crowd out of Philadelphia with pitchforks.

Myth America: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-America-Historians-Biggest-Legends/dp/1541601394.