Hi Everyone. I have a B.A. in History and studied revolutionary America, in which we discussed and read some of the federalist papers and had some exposure to the founding debates. It has been about 10 years since I took any courses on this topic and I might be losing my knowledge on this subject. I have been on social media debating Right wing relatives of mine and one of the things that always comes up in their arguments is that we live in a Republic not a Democracy. I remember there being some talk of this distinction in the federalist papers, but I always though a Republic was a type of Democracy, so wouldn't that argument be like saying, I'm a square, not a quadrilateral? I come to you today to ask: What was the difference in the two systems in the eyes of the founders and what, if any, distinction is there in practice today in the USA? Why is there this notion that democracy is bad and republic is good amongst the tea party people (when looking up republic vs democracy I only get tea party sites.) Thanks in advance.
The two terms are slightly unrelated. The US like most counties today is a democratic republic.
Republic means that you have representatives that meet and decide on laws and rule. They do not have to be democratically elected, though they usually are in modern times.
A democracy is the method you elect your officials. You could have a democratic monarchy- elect your monarch like in the holy Roman empire. You could have direct democracy like they have in Switzerland and had in ancient Greece where people voted on all issues. The US is a democratic republic which elects its representatives to form a government.
A republic is a state that is not constituted as a monarchy. That means that government offices are not hereditary. So, the USA is a republic.
A democracy is a state where the people participate in ruling, be it through elections and representatives or through direct democracy. So, the USA is also a democracy.
Those two terms don't exclude eachother (they don't even describe the same thing)! For example, the USA is a democratic republic, the USSR was a dictatorial republic, the UK is a democratic non-republic (monarchy).
I think the debate comes from the fact that the founding fathers used the term democracy to describe a form of government that is called Ochlocracy. A few of the founding fathers feared that too much direct democracy might lead to a system where the uneducated masses would controll politics and cause harm. The definition of democracy has changed though, and if people still proclaim that the US was in some way not democratic, then they just don't know what they are talking about.