Technically, the US is a republic, a representational democracy with protections for minorities. Most people shorten that to a democracy, which is majority rule. Both definitions are true when the Democrats are in the majority. When the Republicans are the majority, the democracy definition still holds true. However, when in the minority, the Republicans still try to rule under the definition of a republic, but they then try to eliminate protections for the majority.
Some bloggers exalt republics and denigrate democracy as mob rule. Why do they do that? I believe they show disrespect for democracy because they don’t like majority rule. They believe that they, a minority, know better what is good for the country than the unwashed majority of voters. That is one of the reasons that the representatives of the 1% in the media frequently tell members of Occupy Wall Street to take a bath and get a job.
If majority rule, with protections for the minority, is really a problem for some voters, the answer I believe, is better education in general and better education in particular in American history and civics. The media in recent years has really failed in their job to educate voters and I believe that it is the result of the concentration of media ownership in a few corporate hands. The principal purposes of the media now are the generation of profits and the support of the GOP who support the 1%, rather than the fair and balanced supply of information needed by the voters.
- Ignorance and the Trouble with Democracy (izabael.com)
- What is Democracy? (61): A Euphemism for the Rule of Some Over Others? (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
- A Democracy? (theohioconservative.wordpress.com)
- Democracy: A Farce (rossbot.wordpress.com)
- 10 Ways Our Democracy Is Crumbling Around Us (alternet.org)