# Is the U.S. a democracy or a republic? \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860 "2006-02-23T23:16:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/62 "2006-03-03T20:21:21Z")
> [@Lukkbox](#): > > i’d like you to include the phrase “fascist dictatorship” as an option too because no matter which way i look at it or cut it … it is what it is ::: sigh ::: By any legitimate or accepted definitions of either term, the U.S. is neither fascist nor a dictatorship. The closest one can come to invoking “fascism” is to ignore the historical meaning of the term as it actually existed in Italy, Germany, Spain, and several political parties in Eastern Europe prior to WWII. The only other way that one could describe the U.S. as “fascist” is to invoke it as a general term of opprobrium as employed by various (generally shallow thinking) Left-wing speakers. And I doubt that it is very useful to employ an erroneous definition in order to challenge the errors of a poster who seems to have abandoned the discussion over a week ago. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/63 "2006-03-03T21:29:34Z")
> [@Lukkbox](#): > > good question … but you only gave 2 options for your answer > > i’d like you to include the phrase “fascist dictatorship” as an option too because no matter which way i look at it or cut it … it is what it is > > anything less than acceptance of that and your living in conditioned denial :o :smack: My own father, ordinarily a very rational person, thinks we’re living under “fascism” already. I’m not convinced; his hatred of Bush is even more visceral than mine. There are various definitions of “fascism” – [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Definition:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Definition:) > [@](#): > > Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”[1]. The American Heritage Dictionary instead describes it as “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.”[2]. > > Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He said in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism: > > “Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ‘right’, a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the ‘collective’ century, and therefore the century of the State.” [3] > > Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it. > > Stanley Payne’s Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism [4]. A similar strategy was employed by semiotician Umberto Eco in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt[5]. More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a “re-birth” of a conflated nation and ethnic people[6]. By any of these definitions, what we’ve got in the U.S. at present is not really “fascism.” Most fascist movements have been rooted at the beginning in a street-level populism with its own socialist tendencies and class-war rhetoric – all distinctly missing from American politics in the past few decades. The nationalism/patriotism Bush has stirred up and capitalized on since 9/11, with its rhetoric about America being a “beacon of hope and freedom” for the world, is IMO dishonest, but when you look at it closely it’s really just a more extreme form of traditional “American exceptionalism.” And there has been no effort during the Bush Admin to completely silence the opposition, or exert state control over all sectors of society and the economy. What we have is merely a plutocratic (but then, it always has been plutocratic) constitutional republic afflicted with some corruption and abuses. For now. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/64 "2006-03-04T19:30:22Z")
**republic** : from Latin _res publica_, meaning “thing of the people.” **democracy** : from Greek _demokratia_, meaning “rule by the people.” Note that “people” here means the race, the “in” people of the city & culture, not just any collective of random human beings. But seriously, they’re synonyms. Get over it. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/65 "2006-03-04T19:41:11Z")
> [@chuckczrx](#): > > … As far as politics goes - I would never join, or register to vote as, either of the two major parties, and do not consider myself either a “conservative” or a “liberal”. I agree with some “liberal” ideas, and I agree with some “conservative” ideas. Well, yeah, most liberals agree with some conservative ideas, & most conservatives agree with some liberal ideas. Anyone who thinks for himself is likely to deviate from party lines. Your problem is that you’re absolutist in all your freeking definitions. “All-or-nothing-ism” is a syndrome afflicting many adolescents. I’ve gone through it myself. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/66 "2006-03-04T19:52:03Z")
[Well, this thread inspired some self-reflection…](http://www.angelfire.com/journal/foolsguinea/index.html#absolutismfreek) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860/67 "2006-03-05T02:52:56Z")
I think some participants here are falling prey to a bit of bait-and-switch demagoguery. A **republic** in my understanding is an organized system of governance founded in the principle that sovereignty resides in the people (or in the state as the organ of the people, a somewhat outmoded definition), as opposed to residing in the person of a monarch, an oligarchy, an ideological code, or some other person, group, or concept. In contrast, a democracy is generally defined as a system of government in which the people arrange for their own governance, either by making the laws themselves and choosing a leader, or by electing representatives to make such laws. The idea that “democracy” means only _pure_ democracy – Athenian _ecclesia_, New England town meeting, the two Swiss cantons that preserve it – is actually putting a restrictive definition on the term in order to contrast it with representative democracy in a typical republic or constitutional monarchy. Then, because the representative democracy is not a “pure” democracy, they arbitrarily constrict the term to exclude it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-a-democracy-or-a-republic-edited-title/345860.md?page=3)