Kvaran: American one of many republics

I hardly know how to begin responding to Brian Reilly’s letter “Constitution came from the people” (Jan. 17, 2024) so I will just leap in and confine myself to the republic versus democracy section.

Yes, the United States is a republic, but so was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which broke down into a dozen or so republics, including Russia, Estonia, Georgia and a host of others. Other republics include Turkey, People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Iran, Republic of China, Zimbabwe, Republic of Venezuela , Republic of Nicaragua, Libya, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and many, many other countries where I, for one, would not want to live.

What has made the United States great, and made it the place where I do want to live, is that it is a democracy, as opposed to many of those listed above. Mr. Reilly’s characterization of a lynch mob as democracy is just doublespeak, which is defined as “language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words.” Democracy is defined as “a system of government,” and few besides Mr. Reilly would consider a lynch mob as a “system of government.”

What this is, to me, is part of the rightist movement to explain why it is OK that the last two Republican presidents, Bush in 2000 and Trump, were elected with a minority of popular vote. I am not contesting their election, well Bush’s first one was decided by the Supreme Court, but that’s another letter for another day. We all more or less understand the Electoral College, but this faulty reasoning is used to explain why the candidate most people in the United States wanted as their president did not win.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.