History - Past and Perspective
“A Republic, if You Can Keep It”
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“A Republic, if You Can Keep It”

Knowing that a democracy is a government of men in which the tyranny of the majority rules, America’s Founding Fathers wisely created a republic — a government ruled by law. ...
John F. McManus
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

For many generations now, Americans have been brought up believing that the United States is a democracy and that democracy is a good thing. And those beliefs have been reinforced by virtually everything we see and hear as adults.

Consider the frenzy now taking place over the contested 2020 presidential election results. According to both the mainstream media and liberal politicians, President Trump’s and his supporters’ efforts to expose vote fraud and count only legal votes constitute an assault on democracy. For example, the heading of an opinion piece in the New York Times, by editorial board member Jesse Wegman, claimed, “The Republican Party Is Attacking Democracy.” A Vanity Fair headline similarly warned, “Republicans Still Rushing to the Frontlines in Trump’s War Against Democracy.” And former President Barack Obama said recently that democracy has been “strained” by what Trump has been saying.

But it is not just leftist politicians who call the United States a democracy. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is now Trump’s attorney, told a Pennsylvania Senate committee hearing on election irregularities, “If we allow elections in the future to be conducted the way this election was conducted, we will have lost our democracy.”

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