Why Would a County Commissioner Say, "We Do Not Live in a Democracy"?
It's a Republican talking point. What's going on?
After last fall’s election, all five of our County Commissioners are now Republicans. As part of an absolute majority on the Board, some of them have boldly applied their personal preferences to decisions on county issues.
Recently Commissioner Larry Chapman aired his political philosophy. “I’d like to remind people we do not live in a democracy,” he said.
He was objecting to the completion of a public exercise trail on a railroad bed in parts of the county where it would run next to private properties.
Commissioner Chapman: “I’d like to remind people we do not live in a democracy. The majority does not rule in the United States. We are a representative republic.”
Commissioner McCall: “Amen.”
Commissioner Chapman: “That’s why we are up here to represent all the people of this county. Maybe we ought to [find out], not that it would mean anything , what percent [of the citizens] wants a trail and what doesn’t.
“I’m not taking a strong position on the trail, it doesn’t really impact me, but it does impact people.
“I just want to remind people we’re a representative republic, not a democracy where the mob or whatever majority wants to dictate over the minority in this country.”
Chapman was repeating a conservative talking point. But why are Republicans delegitimizing democracy right now? It turns out there’s a reason.
Liberal ideas about inclusive democracy threaten exclusive Republican values.
Writing for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank, Bernard Dobski said in 2020,
America is a republic and not a pure democracy. The contemporary efforts to weaken our republican customs and institutions in the name of greater equality, run against the efforts by America’s Founders to defend our country from the potential excesses of democratic majorities.
Marcus Johnson of Only Sky said that Dobski “is arguing for a form of minority rule that avoids the concept that all people are created equal.”
Republicans are losing ground in America.
As Jennifer Rubin wrote this week,
The group that has declined the most is at the core of the MAGA movement, the group most devoted to Christian nationalism. As recently as 2006, white evangelical Protestants comprised nearly one-quarter of Americans (23%). Today, they are only 13.6%.
So Republicans discount the scary “majority mob rule” of democracy in order to elevate their moral majority (now minority) back into power.
Prepare yourself. There’s another, more factual, reading for Chapman’s statement, that America is not a democracy.
Thanks to gerrymandering and voting restrictions among other things, today’s Republicans are in control of the U. S. Supreme Court, the U. S. House, the North Carolina State Legislature and State Supreme Court, our county Commission Board, and they have a 4-1 majority on our School Board.
Here’s what Stephen Colbert said about the heavily conservative-tilting U. S. Supreme Court in 2021:
“I don’t want to get too technical but we, what’s the word, don’t live in a democracy.”
He reminded his audience that five of the nine justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
But I believe that democratic values — equality before the law, protection of human rights, and a two-party fair voting system — will win in the end, because most of us in America want them, and because now more of us are saying so.
Heather Cox Richardson recently said,
Your voice couldn’t be more important. The time to make noise is now, before November 2024, not after.
I couldn’t agree more.
They don't like the word democracy because it's similar to the word democrat. When they say we don't live in a democracy, come back with "we live in a representative democracy". They don't like that either, but it's hard to argue against.
Thanks for this, Deda. Larry Chapman states the obvious -- we don't live in a democracy. That Chapman and his GOP cronies so proudly & gleefully enjoy their entitlement as white Christian men reflects pitifully & shamefully on the moral intelligence of a significant block of the American citizenry.