this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

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[–] logflume@hexbear.net 51 points 2 years ago (6 children)

"we're not a democracy, we're a republic." -an actual thing amerikkkans will say

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 32 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 21 points 2 years ago

"we don't have a king, we just have an aristocracy"

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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?)

[–] Venus@hexbear.net 24 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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 smuglord

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago

ah makes sense

[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 2 years ago

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

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago
[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago

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

[–] axont@hexbear.net 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.