“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams (1814)

This week, we observe Constitution Day, marking the 237th anniversary of the September 17th signing of our Republic’s Founding Charter at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The Constitution of the United States is the most consequential governing document in the history of mankind, a dramatic departure from the rule of tyrants over the course of all preceding generations, and it stands in stark contrast to those authoritarian regimes that have risen since.

Our Constitution codified and enshrined the foundation of American Liberty enumerated in our Declaration of Independence, which affirmed the “Unalienable Rights of Man,” under the assurance that Rule of Law would prevail over rule of men, the irrevocable terminus of the latter being tyranny.

We are the beneficiaries of generations of American Patriots who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor “to support and defend” Liberty — oaths that have been wantonly forsaken by the current occupants of the executive branch.

For the socialist Democrat Party statists, our Constitution is the greatest obstacle to their authoritarian agenda, and they are endeavoring in every way possible to subvert it.

In the two years before Kamala Harris executed the Democrat Party’s scripted plan to punt Joe Biden to the curb, the Biden/Harris duo was breathlessly branding their political adversary, Donald Trump, as the greatest “threat to democracy.” Given Trump’s considerable and documented record of domestic and foreign policy successes, as diametrically opposed to the Biden/Harris regime’s abysmal record of domestic and foreign policy failures, they had nothing else to run on other than vilifying her opponent.

A week after the first assassination attempt against Trump, their hateful rhetoric undoubtedly being an influential factor in that attack, the Harris/Walz duo adopted the same “Trump is a threat to democracy” theme. At Harris’s ensuing Demo coronation confab, CNN declared, “Democrats to highlight threat to democracy they say Trump poses.” And indeed, they did.

Since then, Harris has repeatedly and emphatically claimed, “Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms,” and, “Our fundamental freedoms are on the ballot, and so is our democracy.” She insists, “We are fighting for our democracy,” and “It’s on us to recognize the threat [Trump] poses.”

She declared, “Donald Trump has vowed that he will be a dictator on day one,” and “He intends to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies.” Given that Demos colluded with their deep state actors to do just that while Trump was president, Harris’s assertion constitutes a textbook case of the BIG Lie.

The Harris campaign website encouraged donations to “win this election and save democracy.”

In last week’s “debate” between Trump and Harris, among the litany of unchallenged lies Harris propagated, she repeatedly invoked the “danger to democracy” rhetoric. In an opening question about runaway inflation, Harris avoided the question, and when pressed for an answer, she diverted to her familiar claim, “Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Harris then said, “In this debate tonight, you’re going to hear from the same old tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances, and name-calling.”

She proceeded to repeat “the same old tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances, and name-calling.”

When ABC “moderator” David Muir exhorted, “I want to talk about the peaceful transfer of power, which of course we all know was a cornerstone of our democracy,” it was a layup for Harris to indict Trump for the J6 riots, falsely claiming police were killed that day. Recall that Harris previous declared: “Certain dates echo throughout history … when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars but a place in our collective memory. December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021.”

And she then pivoted to the Charlottesville lie that Trump said racists were “very fine people.”

At one point, Trump rebutted Harris: “They talk about democracy. I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy with the fake ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ investigation.”

The Demos orchestrated that “fake news” ahead of the 2020 election, with the deep state collusion pushing the fallacious “Trump/Russia connection,” which was followed by the most deliberate mass media cover-up in our nation’s history.

Within a week of the Leftmedia propagation of Harris’s debate accusations asserting that Trump “is a threat to democracy” who approves of racists and tyrants, Trump was the target of a second assassination attempt.

Asked about that attempt, Harris responded, “I am in this election … to fight for our democracy, and in a democracy, there is no place for political violence.”

Well, apparently, there is. Nothing to see here, folks; move along…

Make no mistake, the Demo “democracy” rhetoric is calculated. Democrats know that the vast majority of their constituents are too civically disabled to distinguish between a Republic and a democracy, much less discern the danger posed by “democracy.”

The proliferation of this fallacious “democracy” rhetoric is deliberate in its obfuscation of the fact that we are a Republic. It reveals the most perilous domestic threat to Liberty in modern history — the Harris/Walz ticket and the leftist Demo cadres they will infuse into all levels of government.

If the Harris/Walz ticket succeeds, they will insist that, in the name of “democracy,” Congress must pass legislation codifying their national ballot fraud strategy into law, thus ensuring permanent Democrat executive, legislative, and judicial control into the future.

They are not overtly overthrowing our Constitution but covertly undermining it, one incremental step at a time.

This deliberate effort by leftist politicians to confuse the people about the distinction between a Republic and democracy is not new, though it is now more prolific than ever.

I recently came across a timeless commentary from almost 60 years ago by former FBI agent Dan Smoot on the difference between a Republic and democracy. Smoot was what we would now call an “influencer.”

Smoot affirmed:

“The idea of a democracy is universal equality; the idea of a Constitutional Republic is individual Liberty. A democracy always degenerates into a dictatorship that promises government-guaranteed equality and security but delivers nothing but poverty and serfdom for the people that it robs and rules. America was founded as a Constitutional Republic to safeguard the liberty of the people against the tyranny of democracy. … In this Century, great strides have been made towards the goal of subverting our Republic towards a democracy. The most tactical of subversions is the subversion of language. By calling our nation a ‘democracy’ until people thoughtlessly accept the use of the term, the totalitarians have obscured the real meaning of our principles of government.”

Notably, Smoot referenced back then “a recent article distributed by the New York Times News Service asserting, ‘In the United States and other leading democracies, recent years have seen perceptible growth in Executive Authority as society becomes more equalitarian…’”

Not much has changed at that tired old Gray Lady.

Recently, in a column titled “The NYT’s Constitution-Shredding Cadres,” I noted: “The corrupt New York Times, the frontline for Leftmedia propaganda, has once again declared that our Constitution is dangerous to democracy.” I cited the paper’s leftist book critic, Jennifer Szalai, who insists, “One of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be the country’s founding document.”

Indeed, our Constitution is, by design, dangerous to democracy.

Circling back to Trump, regarding the politically motivated lawfare prosecutions against him and the Biden/Harris/Walz “threat to democracy” claims, in a little-noticed interview of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he rebutted that claim: “You want to talk about a threat to democracy: When you have this country believing you’re playing politics with the justice system and you’re trying to put people in jail or convict them for political reasons, then we have a real problem. That’s what is offensive to people, and it should be because if there’s anything left, it’s belief in the justice system.”

Cuomo added: “If his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president — I’m the former AG of New York — I’m telling you that case never would’ve been brought. New Yorkers said — 66% said — the justice system is politicized. And there’s nobody in New York who likes Trump. And still, 66% said the justice system is politicized.”

For the record, our Founders’ abject contempt for “democracy,” a word that appears nowhere in our Constitution, was clear.

When drafting the Constitution to establish our Republic, our Founders boldly proclaimed that a Republic is rooted in Rule of Law (Liberty), while democracies ruled by men inevitably devolve into authoritarian autocracies — precisely what Harris and her leftist ilk seek. That is why our Constitution’s Article IV, Section 4 clearly notes: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…”

Consider the most influential of those Founders and their timeless observations on the distinction between Republics and democracies.

George Washington, the “Father of our Nation”: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence: “The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. … It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back. … The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. … It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”

James Madison, the principal author of our Constitution: “The Constitutional Convention … produced a new constitution designed to strengthen republican government against democratic assembly. … Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations. … If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes. … Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams, second President of our nation, and a statesman, attorney and diplomat: “They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. … There is no good government but what is republican. … Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. … It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. … No simple form of government, can possibly secure men against the violences of power. … Democracy, will soon degenerate into an anarchy … and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure.”

Alexander Hamilton, who, along with Madison and John Jay, articulated the meaning of our Constitution in The Federalist Papers: “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. … If it be asked, what is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, an inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. … But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy. … Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

Upon conclusion of the Federal Convention of 1787 to draft our Constitution, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

“If you can keep it,” indeed.

In his exhaustive 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Justice Joseph Story, James Madison’s Supreme Court appointee, warned about the danger when Republics devolve into democracy: “Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”

“The profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” Sound familiar?

In some contexts, I have seen “democracy” written as “dumbocracy” because democracy inevitably devolves into the lowest form of tyranny and oppression.

As for the “confusion” between a Republic and a democracy, the greatest of American presidents in the last century, Ronald Reagan, reminded us, “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” Given the profusion of mass misinformation today, never have so many known “so much that isn’t so.”

But that is not true of the Marxist protagonists now fused with the Harris/Walz ticket. They know the difference and know exactly what they are doing when repeatedly calling our nation a “democracy.”

FOOTNOTE: Constitution Day also marks The Patriot Post’s anniversary, and we are grateful to you, our fellow Patriots, for your financial support of our mission and operations budget in order to extend Liberty to the next generation. We offer an excellent resource for that purpose, our highly acclaimed “Patriot’s Primer on American Liberty” pocket guides, which are available for bulk purchase and distribution to students, grassroots organizations, civic clubs, political gatherings, military and public service personnel, professional associations, and others.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

Comment | Share

---

Please join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of American Liberty, and for Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic’s Founding Principle of Liberty, in order to ignite the fires of freedom in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Thank you for supporting our nation’s premier journal of American Liberty.