Washington Post claims it’s a right-wing talking point to say America is not a democracy
No matter what a conservative says, even if it is completely true, Democrats and their allies in the press tend to reject it out of hand as a disingenuous, unhinged, and possibly dangerous right-wing talking point.
It's a cute game.
We saw a lot of this during the 2020 Democratic primary, where legitimate questions were dismissed summarily by the candidates as a “Republican talking point.” More recently, on Wednesday, the Washington Post alleged that conservatives are parroting a loony right-wing group whenever they note correctly that the United States is a constitutional federal republic and not a democracy.
Former Mississippi state representative and 2019 gubernatorial candidate Robert Foster said on social media on Nov. 7 that, “The majority does not rule, the law derived from a Constitution has the final say.”
He adds, “Not sure who all needs to hear this but we are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic.”
That is undeniably true. That there is apparently some confusion over this matter is a broader indictment of the state of education in the U.S.
However, in covering Foster’s remarks, the Washington Post has this to say [emphasis added]: “His claim that the U.S. is not a democracy — a talking point pushed by the ultraconservative John Birch Society, according to the Free Press — has been cast aside by some political scientists as disingenuous.”
Son of a Birch!
For those who are unfamiliar with the John Birch Society, it is the same group that William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater worked to excommunicate from the conservative movement in the 1960s over its lunatic conspiracy-theory mongering, including the idea that Dwight Eisenhower was a secret communist agent.
So, for the Washington Post to claim the Birchers are the reason conservatives claim the U.S. is not a democracy is just the latest attempt to paint everything conservatives say as unhinged, even when what they say it is 100% true. And about the U.S. not being a pure democracy, don’t just take just my word for it.
On Nov. 6, 2018, the Washington Post published an opinion article titled, “The United States isn’t a democracy — and was never intended to be.”
Is the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” newspaper aware it elevated a John Birch Society talking point?
Also, for good measure, here is a verbatim quote from an Obama administration handbook on “how the United States is governed”: “While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? ‘Constitutional’ refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States.”
All true. No one objected when the Obama administration made this point.
But that was then. This is now. Now, as conservatives continue to respond to the Left's screeching about how unfair and undemocratic the Electoral College is, we can probably expect others in the press to take the same tack as the Washington Post. Rather than simply concede the point that America does not run on mob rule, Democrats and their friends in media will simply write it off as another fringe right-wing talking point.
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