Lori Falce: Are we a democracy or a republic?
May 10—The words we use can make a difference in the way we think.
For instance, I have received more than one email talking about "demonrats" instead of Democrats. "Republicans" can be mutated into "Rethuglicans."
The message in the mangling of the words is clear. It's one of distaste and distrust, if not outright disgust.
And that revulsion is growing beyond the people. It's spreading to the very concepts that define us.
Is America a democracy? Or is it a republic?
In a quote that has since been almost criminally overused, Benjamin Franklin answered it after the Constitutional Convention when asked if America would be a republic or a monarchy.
"A republic, if you can keep it," he replied.
But the truth is not as simple as that one word. America is, strictly speaking, neither a democracy nor a republic but kind of an alloy of the two.
A republic is a nation in which the power resides with the people and their elected officers rather than a king. Rome was a republic before it slid into an empire. A democracy keeps the power with the people, not so much the elected. Ancient Greece was a democracy.
But the United States brings the two together. It is a representative democracy. It is a constitutional republic. And that can cause bristling when people argue about what exactly America is today.
In Washington, the state Republican Party passed a resolution in April at the convention where they decided on endorsements and built the planks of the platform. Among the decisions made, according to the Seattle Times, was a ban on the word "democracy."
"... Every time the word 'democracy' is used favorably, it serves to promote the principles of the Democratic Party, the principles we ardently oppose," the resolution reads.
Instead, followers are to substitute the words "republic" and "republicanism."
This is ludicrous. While there are differences, they are hair-splitting ones. It is like going to war over the name Penn State University and demanding the land grant school be called Pennsylvania Commonwealth University. Yes, technically Pennsylvania is a commonwealth, not a state, but it's a distinction without a real difference.
We know America is both a democracy and a republic and can prove it with our earliest political parties. The Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton stood on one side, advocating for strong central authority. On the other side, the Democratic-Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson cautioned about the authority of states — and commonwealths.
It is bad enough that political divisions have us questioning our neighbors and demonizing the opposition rather than finding common ground.
We can't let it make villains of the very pillars that prop up everything that we are.
Lori Falce is the Tribune-Review community engagement editor and an opinion columnist. For more than 30 years, she has covered Pennsylvania politics, Penn State, crime and communities. She joined the Trib in 2018. She can be reached at lfalce@triblive.com.
