GOP Messaging: “We Are Not a Democracy”
In June, The Heritage Foundation published a report explaining that America is a republic, not a democracy. In October, Republican Senator Mike Lee repeated this assertion. By 2022 it was often seen in comments on social media and by mid-June of 2024, it was being echoed by Trump rally goers.
In a CNN segment first aired early in the summer of 2024, Donie O’Sullivan interviewed Trump supporters who echo, in various ways, the claim that America is not a democracy. O’Sullivan contrasts their statements with two Republican presidents who believed emphatically in American democracy, declaring “Democracy is worth dying for” (Ronald Reagan) and “Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy” (George W. Bush).
He then explored the surge in this belief that we are not a democracy with Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc., who explained, “You are hearing people say ‘America is not a democracy’ because there are people around Trump who want them to be saying that, who have been planting that narrative.” She suggests the Trump camp wants Americans to get used to the idea that we are not a democracy so that they won’t be distressed by his attacks on our democratic principles.
Applebaum also dismisses the distinctions that MAGA Republicans are making between the terms “republic” and “democracy”, pointing out that throughout our history they have been used interchangeably. In her view, the reason we are quibbling over these terms now is “because there is a part of the Republic Party that would like to rule as a minority”.
As O’Sullivan notes at the end of the segment, MAGA disbelief in American democracy seemed to surge following a February speech by President Biden in which he referred to Trump as a threat to democracy. He concludes by suggesting this twisting of language is Republicans’ attempt to neutralize that accusation.
The segment reveals how narrative control is critical when two worldviews collide.
