No, it doesn’t mean being a Democrat Republican.

We’ll get back to the Democrat part. Let’s start with republican government. Given the current state of the Republican Party I’m not sure they are republican at all so no, that’s not what I mean.

You want a definition, huh? Okey doke!

Republican: a system of government in which representatives rule.

Note that it just says ‘representatives’. Technically, the senators of Rome were representatives but they represented the Roman citizens which were originally a fairly elite group. Living in or being born in Rome didn’t necessarily make you a citizen (this varied to a degree over time as I understand it). In Rome most citizens were wealthy and owned property. Residents were just the common folks; only citizens, the propertied class, got a say in government. The rabble, not so much.

Sound a bit familiar? Yes, the Founding Fathers considered something similar when crafting the Constitution. It ended up in the trash can. Good call!

America, for what will seem the umpteenth time to regular viewers/readers/listeners (sorry, I can’t bring myself to just calling you ‘content consumers’), America is a democratic republic. We are not a democracy – those don’t work with large populations or complex societies even if you limit voting as the Greeks did to the wealthy and elite. We are not a republic – those don’t have an executive or at the very least not a strong one. We are a blend – a democratic republic.

The democratic part is easy – all citizens unless legally barred (felons, mentally incapacitated) by judicial action (Due Process for the win!) have the right to vote unhindered by means (money) or artificial controls. We do love to go one endlessly about the virtues of democracy and how democratic we are. Truth is, we are very democratic and that’s a good thing. The democratic part is what makes the republic part actually work.

Okay, the masterful balancing act created by the Constitution does get the lion’s share of the credit but our commitment to democratic values come in a very close second.

In all that hoopla, we lose sight of that other bit – the republic part. This is our big mistake. Think of the US government as a car – okay, a really old, very simple car. The Constitution is the roadmap, navigator and steering wheel. It’s like the dad in a vacation movie – it has the final say in where the car goes no matter how much the family complains. Democracy – specifically the People – are the engine. No people, no government, period. Without the People not only will the car not move but no one will want it to. People are the most critical part in any democratic based system and probably in all political systems.

So, we’re ready to go, right? Not so fast – you might need that chassis and the wheels. That’s what the republic part is – it’s the part where the rubber literally hits the road. It’s the boring part that actually does the heavy lifting of government. Someone has to eat all that rubber chicken so we elect representatives to go to the meetings so we don’t have to.

That’s less of a joke than it sounds like it is.

The bigger a country gets in terms of population, the harder it is to govern. Even if everyone is sweet a pie, the huge numbers become unwieldly. Granny and Aunt Bee may both be the nicest things since sliced bread but they can vehemently disagree on whether or not to put a new traffic light in Mayberry. I wouldn’t get in between those two if I were you.

Point being, good people can disagree on what is best policy. Lots of good people disagreeing very loudly can be a lot of fun to watch but it’s not a great way to get that stupid traffic light settled. Deciding what to spend on the military puts the problem on steroids.

Maybe letting people who think aircraft carriers are battleships decide how many destroyers we should fund might not be the best idea ever. It could be fun trying to solve the problem by having a 24 hour hotline to the Joint Chiefs but then no one would want to stay in the Navy long enough to get the job – could you imaging spending forty years in service only to end up answering calls at 2 am to explain that yes, ships do need engines and no, solar won’t work?

It’s bad enough trying to explain to congressmen than no, we don’t need any new battleships but we do need to build a few new shipyards, then having to patiently explain what a shipyard is.

If any of that went over your head, don’t call the Admiral of the Navy – she won’t like it.

Point being, no one knows everything and there are a LOT of things that go into good governance. It’s a WHOLE lot easier to have a few representatives with access to the expertise they need than to have everyone having to cram for a given decision.

No, the internet doesn’t fix the problem. Did you look up battleships? No? Why not? Oh, you have a life just like everyone else? Gee think maybe most people aren’t going to have the time to do historical research on recession before voting on some hairbrained scheme to let every city or bank issue its own currency (hint: this didn’t work the first time).

That’s actually on a video I watched today. But if we were really considering amending the Constitution like that how many people would even look it up?

No, that’s not an argument against democratic systems. Pure democracy, sure, but not against the idea that people should have the right to vote for representatives that will (hopefully) put in the work to get as much right as possible. That everyone can’t know everything doesn’t mean good people can’t select whomever they think will be best to represent them in government and make the best decisions that person can.

Then toss the bum out when he gets addicted to rubber chicken.

Having spare parts is a major advantage to running the Car of State.

I am not a big fan of political labels. They seldom describe anyone correctly. Also, we tend to shorten and abuse them until they lose all rational connection with whatever they once meant. That’s why we use democracy so indiscriminately that it really is more an emotion than an idea. I laughed at the EU recently talking about its ‘democratic values’. The same bunch that is terrified of any populist movement can’t seriously think they value democracy – at least not if they have a clue what the word means.

Everyone is so afraid of losing our ‘democracy’ when they need to worry about our republic.

If those jerks we send to Washington don’t represent us, democracy won’t save us. Representative democracy or democratic republic, whichever you want to call it, it’s that republic thing that we can’t afford to lose.

This is the hard part: you have to pay attention. I know, I know, government is so boring until it does something stupid that ticks everyone off. But the beauty of the republican system is you don’t need to pay attention to every little issue. If you don’t wanna know what a shipyard is, that’s fine. You only have to keep up on the basics. If you want, keep up on issues that matter to you. Then keep up with exactly three people: your Representative, your Senator and your President.

A whole lot simpler than having to have a knowledgeable opinion on whether or not to build new Virginia Class subs, amiright? Look, if your representatives are doing a pretty good job on the issues you do know about, the odds are in your favor that they will do pretty good on the esoteric stuff like what to do about the Zumwalts. No, I didn’t make it up – that’s actually a real thing.

This is why we have so danged many committees in Congress.

Your job as a citizen of these United States of America is to send to Congress the very best representatives you can and to keep an eye on the rubber chicken loving jerks. That’s it. Sure, it takes some work – but so does marching in protest because the idiots tried to mandate rubber chicken dinners for everyone.

The power is in the engine – us, remember? But we go nowhere without that chassis linking us to the wheels. Keeping that chassis bolted on and where we can see it, that’s our job.

Now the bad news, that chassis has been run over way too many salt covered roads. It’s rusty and has a nasty tendency to jerk out of alignment. It’s going to need some work.

Sending the first idiot that our party of choice spits out doesn’t cut it anymore. Those primary things are how we repair the rust. Vote in your primaries because that’s where most of you will actually decide who you will be voting for in the general election. This is a feature, not a bug. It gives the people the power to select their candidates rather than letting some backroom bandits decide. That power is yours. It’s like taking an angle grinder to the rust. It works, takes time, is messy, is annoying and gets the job done but only if you actually bother to pick up that angle grinder in the first place.

Sounds like democracy again? The reality is we can’t separate democracy from the republic. We’re a democratic republic, not a democracy nor a republic. We’re both/and, not either/or.

We’re the We the People the Founders were talking about and we are the ones that keep this cantankerous, crazy glued, backyard DIY of a Car of State running. She might not run like a top but she gets where she’s going. She’s our beautiful, one of a kind, purrs like a kitten, American democratic republic.

All we gotta do is keep her on the road.