The people thing of the people

Some people on the far left think we live in a pure democracy. We don’t.

Others think we live in a pure republic. We do not.

We live in a (take your pick) democratic republic, representative democracy or a self-elected self-government.

The derivation of our two major political parties comes from the first official political party, the Democratic-Republican Party formed under Thomas Jefferson. He fervently championed pure federalism (a confederation) and state’s rights but succumbed to the practicality of singular rule when he authorized the purchase of the Louisiana Territory without consulting Congress first.

What does this mean to us today as 21st-century Americans, and why does it matter at all?

The Great American Experiment is still very much a work in progress on the political canvas of history. The United States of America is entering its semiquincentennial year after the first shots were fired at Concord and Lexington ― and we are still trying to get it right as well.

We get trapped into thinking there are two teams out there: the red team, or the Republicans, and the blue team, the Democrats. The truth is the root words and etymology for both terms mean essentially the same thing.

We should remember that despite our sometimes-virulent differences.

The word “democracy” is derived from the ancient Greek word dēmokratia. Demos meant “common people,” and -kratos meant “rule” or strength ― rule by, for and of the people.

There were no elected representatives or, God forbid, senators in ancient Athens, starting 500 years before Christ. Men, free men only, would vote on the issues of the day in the common open-area amphitheater and decide, by majority rule, which roads to build, which wars to undertake and, most importantly, how to pay for it all with their taxes, not anyone else’s.

Those who owned land were also expected to own military equipment such as shields, swords and spears so they could confront the Spartans or the Persians whenever they sought to invade Greece or any of its allies in the Peloponnesian peninsula and isthmus.

On the other hand, the word “republic” was never used in ancient Athens, Sparta or Persia. Greeks would have had no idea of what the word meant since it wasn’t invented and used until the Romans established their version of a “republic” around the same time, 500 B.C.

It wasn’t until Julius Caesar took over in 44 B.C. that the Roman Empire was established and became known as an empire run by a strongman single rule, albeit with the concurrence of many times a feckless, cowering Senate.

Our modern word “republic” got its start as “respublica” which was the Latin word meaning matters (res) of the people (publica). The idea connoted by its etymology was that of a nontyrannical state where people would participate in the governance of themselves as a peaceful entity by electing consuls to hash out problems and disagreements in a rational manner.

Toward the end of the Roman Republic, the Senate — made up mostly of wealthy patricians or descendants from the first senators under Romulus — sought to curry favor with the common folk of Rome and came up with the slogan “Senatus Populusque Romanus” — SPQR or “The Senate and People of Rome.”

There was the assumption government power ultimately came from the people of Rome. However, with such a powerful Senate making most of the important decisions, ancient Rome could hardly be considered a “democratic republic” in the true American sense.

It was just “the thing” ancient Romans adopted to live together about the same time Athens was in a pitched battle with the Spartans and then the Persians from 430 B.C. to 403 B.C. in the first true world war, the Peloponnesian War.

Fortunately for us Americans, the gentlemen who assembled not only in Philadelphia in 1787 to write the Constitution but also in 1776 to draft the Articles of Confederation were highly educated men who not only knew the histories of ancient Greece and Rome, but they had studied the characteristics of the two very different forms of government in the original Greek and Latin.

Over a period of 15 years, they proposed, debated, argued and ultimately came to a conclusion that blended the concepts of direct participation in the form of voting (democracy) and election of representatives (republic).

It has been quite a unique and remarkable journey. In many ways, the American Democratic Republic was once again saved in the 2024 election.

As Mrs. Powell heard from Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, it is up to us to keep it ― if we can.