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Opinion
Jonathan Bernstein

You Say Democracy, I Say Republic

The terms are interchangeable descriptions of the American political system, yet a fight over their meaning could have outsize consequences.

The Lincoln Memorial follows the designs of the temples of ancient Greece.

The Lincoln Memorial follows the designs of the temples of ancient Greece.

Photographer: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

One of this age’s great crank ideas, that the U.S. is a “republic” and not a “democracy,” is gaining so much ground that people in Michigan are trying to rewrite textbooks to get rid of the term “democracy.” And the discussion is such a mess that a New York Times article about the fight manages to get it wrong.

The truth is actually simple: For all practical purposes, and in most contexts, “republic” and “democracy” are synonyms. The big difference is that the first comes from Latin and the latter from Greek. To say that the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy, is like claiming to eat beef and pork but not cows and pigs.