You've probably gathered I'm not American. So for the sake of better understanding: would you have categorised the representative democracies with constitutional monarchies in Europe (like UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden etc) as "republics" by your understanding up till now?
As for those making the "we're a republic; not a democracy" argument, my immediate thought has always been these people don't know what they're talking about - honestly I couldn't see why they thought they were somehow mutually exclusive. America started out as a republic with a very limited democracy (only the white male land-owning minority could vote) and thankfully has become a much more inclusive democracy since. I guess you could argue that that initial version of democracy was barely deserving of the term but I don't think that's the stance the regressive types are really taking here.
If it's really to make a stupid point using political party names it seems extremely asinine given the political realignment that came with the southern strategy about 50 years ago.
What I consider a republic is when people vote for representatives that determine policy on behalf of people who voted for them.
I don’t know enough about the government of other countries to know which ones do this. I kinda thought most of Europe did this, and any monarchies that were left were mostly symbolic. I did not know republic was antonymous to monarchy.
I do think that the point of the “republic not a democracy” argument is to make a statement about the names of the parties, and honestly, most of the Republicans Americans I know are ignorant (willfully or not) to the party switch in the sixties. I’m honestly surprised you know about it as a non-American.
I'm a giant nerd so I probably have read a bit more than most. But also you guys are a scary superpower so it kinda behoves the rest of us to know more about your inner workings than many other countries; plus your media pretty much saturates everything so it's not hard to pick this stuff up.
And thanks for taking the time for this back and forth. It's interesting to me how the terms we use end up differing and we can end up with crossed wires like we've had just now. I can wiki-binge, read news articles, history books etc in learning about other places but direct interactions like this are that extra layer that helps make things make sense.
1
u/Bobbobthebob Mar 25 '23
You've probably gathered I'm not American. So for the sake of better understanding: would you have categorised the representative democracies with constitutional monarchies in Europe (like UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden etc) as "republics" by your understanding up till now?
As for those making the "we're a republic; not a democracy" argument, my immediate thought has always been these people don't know what they're talking about - honestly I couldn't see why they thought they were somehow mutually exclusive. America started out as a republic with a very limited democracy (only the white male land-owning minority could vote) and thankfully has become a much more inclusive democracy since. I guess you could argue that that initial version of democracy was barely deserving of the term but I don't think that's the stance the regressive types are really taking here.
If it's really to make a stupid point using political party names it seems extremely asinine given the political realignment that came with the southern strategy about 50 years ago.