It feels like a sort of canvas to paint whatever sort of limitations a person feels like putting on the ideals of democracy.
Like, outside the actual structural stuff, most people loosely seem to be saying they see that idea as a democracy with more checks.
This is essentially what I'm getting at.
Some say that we're not a "democracy" because we don't decide everything via direct democracy. However then you can point out that in individual states, we DO have ways to decide
some things literally via direct democracy. Including amending state Constitutions. And of course that means nothing because beyond a certain size, it's literally impossible to decide things by direct democracy. Electing representatives to be our democratic proxies is still pretty much, IMHO,
democracy. If all it takes is representative democracy to be a Republic and not a democracy, it's a nothing statement.
Others say that it's because we protect individual rights, protecting the minority from the majority. The first problem with that is that it's not entirely true outside of VERY specific ways. The second problem is that our Constitution isn't written in stone. We could repeal the First Amendment. There are people who desperately WANT to repeal the Second Amendment. The third problem with that is that it's a little disingenuous to say that the folks who set up a country that preserved slavery and only allowed landowning white males to vote were protecting the minority. And most of the developed world is just the same in the sense that they protect individual rights, so saying that is what makes us a Republic and not democracy is again a nothing statement.
So my issue is that it seems like people just make that statement, "You know we're a Republic and not a democracy, right?!" and then drop the mic like they've dunked on you and need say no more. It's a nothing statement.
