Skip to main content
BoomMag: Readers and Fans
Advertise With Us Newsletter

WLT Report WLT Report

Advertise With Us Newsletter
We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Read our full Disclosure here.

Watch: James Carville Has Profane Meltdown When Conservatives Accurately Describe America As A ‘Republic’

Leftists have been in lockstep lately with their insistence that America is a democracy rather than, as the Constitution clearly stipulates, a republic.

That included a recent CNN segment in which the cable network appeared to ridicule Donald Trump supporters who accurately described America’s founding system of government.

And then long-time Democratic strategist James Carville weighed in with a characteristically crass denunciation of those on the right who happen to agree with the nation’s founding fathers.

As the Daily Caller reported:

“They did this thing and they’re interviewing these people. And he says, ‘We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic. We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic.’ An so finally, the guy says, ‘What is a republic?’ And of course, there I am. Let me name a republic for you: North Korea, okay? Iran calls itself a republic. Remember the DGR, the German Democratic Republic? And so, about all it means, to the extent other than just people referring to themselves and I don’t think North Korea is approaching a democracy. Of course it’s not, or Iran, or remember the USSR? What was the ‘R’ in the USSR?”

“Alright, so it’s colossally stupid. It doesn’t even account for anything and these people are giant fools,” Carville continued. “And of course, you read or study this in ninth grade …  it’s a representative democracy, not a participatory democracy. And they’ll point to some town in New Hampshire where the whole town votes on something. But just people have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about and they just blabber the stupidest shit that you can imagine. And that is the big talking point: ‘Well, we’re a republic, we’re not a democracy.’ What the fuck is a republic? Anybody can call themselves a republic. I give the Brits credit, at least they don’t try to pretend.”

The semantic debate raged on social media, with many users agreeing that it isn’t accurate to describe America as a democracy.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Heritage Foundation‘s Edwin Feulner elaborated on why the distinction between democracy and republic is important, explaining in 2018:

People often refer to the United States as a democracy, but technically speaking, that’s not true. It’s a republic.

Big deal, you say? If you care about your rights, it is. The Founding Fathers knew their history well, so they knew better than to establish the U.S. as a democracy.

In a democracy, of course, the majority rules. That’s all well and good for the majority, but what about the minority? Don’t they have rights that deserve respect?

Of course they do. Which is why a democracy won’t cut it. As the saying goes, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

The Founders were determined to forestall the inherent dangers of what James Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.” So they constructed something more lasting: a republic. Something with checks and balances. A system of government carefully balanced to safeguard the rights of both the majority and the minority.

ADVERTISEMENT

That led, most notably, to the bicameral structure of our legislative branch. We have a House of Representatives, where the number of members is greater for more populous states (which obviously favors those states), and the Senate, where every state from Rhode Island and Alaska to California and New York have exactly two representatives (which keeps less-populated states from being steamrolled).

Being a republic, we also don’t pick our president through a direct, majority-take-all vote. We have an Electoral College. And a lot of liberals don’t like that.

Their attacks on the College are nothing new, but the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 renewed their fury. After all, as they never tire of pointing out, Mrs. Clinton captured more of the popular vote than Donald Trump did. They see the Electoral College as an impediment to their political victories, therefore it’s got to go.

The latest attack comes via new lawsuits filed in federal courts in four states (Massachusetts, California, South Carolina and Texas). “Under the winner-take-all system, U.S. citizens have been denied their constitutional right to an equal vote in presidential elections,” said David Boies, an attorney who represented former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election.

I doubt Mr. Boies and his fellow attorneys are really ignorant of why we have an Electoral College. But it’s important that the rest of us know.

“The Electoral College is a very carefully considered structure the Framers of the Constitution set up to balance the competing interests of large and small states,” writes Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. “It prevents candidates from wining an election by focusing only on high-population urban centers (the big cities), ignoring smaller states and the more rural areas of the country — the places that progressives and media elites consider flyover country.”

Here’s a clip from the CNN segment that reignited this cultural debate:

ADVERTISEMENT

,

 

Join the conversation!

Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!

log in

Forgot password?

reset password

Back to
log in
Leave a comment
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing!
We invite you to become a WLT Report insider. Sign up for our free email newsletter, and we'll make sure to keep you in the loop.