behold, the power of snarky cynicism to constantly reproduce the ideology of the ruling class, but it's "just a joke"
found under https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aOHQ-sMCps
"we're not a democracy, we're a republic." -an actual thing amerikkkans will say
That’s a classic “The card says Moops” situation. No one on the right was saying that until roughly the second Obama term, when it had become apparent the Republicans couldn’t hold national power by democratic means and needed gerrymandering/Senate structure/supreme court/electoral college to impose their will. Prior to that, the mantra was “we are a fundamentally conservative country”; they pulled out polling data all the time as an argument against gay marriage.
"we don't have a king, we just have an aristocracy"
wait why is thos incorrect? america is a republic, or am i wrong about this (obviously amerikkka is an undemocratic oligarchy but the official government system is a republic, yes?)
It's only used in situations like this:
I support democracy
but [thing you support] is completely undemocratic. The people have no say in it, it's decided by a few old rich white dudes
we're not a democracy we're a republic look it up sweetie it's not supposed to be democratic
I've heard/read chuds say that as if they are mutually exclusive terms or if they want to defend minority rule brought about by the electoral college
A Republic is a nation without a monarchy/emperor whatever.
Democracy is how you elect representatives to enact laws etc., and there are various systems of democracy you can have.
The conservatives that say this have basically made "USA-style representative democracy" = "Republic" because they come from the mindset of "Democracy " = "Direct Democracy", which is something that no nation state has used in a very long time. They also come from the mindset of "Democracy" being mob rule of the minority , which is more American brainrot influenced by the Electoral College.
Also, there are plenty of Republics in history that have been dictatorships, so their talking point is nothing more than a rehearsed line that is meant to be used until it becomes true. From what I've seen it works too, every American conservative I've seen uses it.
Yes, in theory America is a democratic republic, the terms are not necessarily in contradiction although these days Republicans really want to emphasize the republic aspect
this is nitpicking and nerd shit but democracy and republic almost mean the same thing and I get needlessly pissed at my dumbass fellow americans who get hung up over the two terms. They even have the same root words. Democracy is Greek, from the words demos and -kratia, meaning something like "rule by the people." That demos is the same root as in demographic. Republic is Latin coming from the words res and publicus, meaning something like "thing/entity of the people." That word publicus is also where the word public is from. It's related to the word people and I think distantly related to "folk" through centuries of weird Germanic language drift where p's turned into f's. (like ped became foot, pyre became fire)
There are some nerd liberal distinctions between what they mean. Liberals will sometimes say a republic is a government type whereas democracy is a method of governance, but in practice the two terms effectively mean the same thing. That is, they mean there's a representative body organized with the consent of the public rather than unelected, unchanging leadership, such as an absolute monarchy. Just about every country on earth is some type of democratic republic (or at least puts up the theater of being one), or will have some democratic elements to it. The ones that aren't are the handful that are absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Vatican City, Eswatini, and a few others.
This is actually correct, when you consider the usian meaning of "republic" is exactly like the Roman one - system specifically created to keep the oligarchy in power while giving people some crumbs and illusion of power.
Every. Fucking. Government. Is. A. Dictatorship. Someone always dictates, whether or not they let you vote and who they let vote doesn't change that. If people would hurry up and figure that out maybe we could found a state where the workers were the ones dictating. Someone should write a book about that
I think they missed out on the anarchy doesn't mean no rules it means no rulers part of the class. Societies have values and there's always going to be consequences for transgressing them. But the idea that western democracies dealing with wealth inequality by shoving the poorest citizens into prison for the committing the acts of indignity forced upon them by poverty could somehow be more "free" is disgusting
You joke, but there's legitimate cause for rewriting theory to fit the information era.
What would you rewrite specifically? I see theory as something that's constantly evolving; a modern day Marxist would agree with much of what a 19th century comrade had to see but not all of it certainly. If you just wanted to get rid of the scary terms like dictatorship I feel like its better to explain what was meant in context and I think Marxism 101 types already do that
"Is this the oligarchy that pretends to be a democracy?"
"No, this is the United..."
"Yup, this is it."
"no, we're the United Sta—"
I'll be the pedant. I think the list of countries that use "Democratic Republic of" are:
And even using the standards of the journal which speaks for British millionaires, these are kind of an even mix of democracies and non-democracies. So basically, this joke is just "North Korea sucks lol"
this joke is just "North Korea sucks lol"
truly a free-thinker who says the truth to power
please include the title of videos so we don't have the click the link.
This is funny. I don't care.
Looked up more on the “Democratic Republic” moniker and found this gem on Wikipedia:
“Henhouses were rated to be undemocratic bastions of terrorism, according to Fox & Weasel Monthly.”
oRgAnIzAtIoNs tHaT gAvE sUcH rAtInGs
with no interrogation of why those organizations exist or who funds them. [sarcastic golf clap]
I think in a lot of the listed cases their status as undemocratic isn't really under question, even when the source is biased
Sure. But the same Index listed Israel as a “flawed democracy” so getting a few right doesn’t save it.