Once upon a time, President George W. Bush gave speeches declaring his “commitment to democracy” around the world.
More recently, Hillary Clinton took to Facebook to applaud a Supreme Court ruling on voting districts, saying, “in our democracy, every one of our voices should count.”
Probably without realizing it, both Bush and Clinton repeatedly reference a great linguistic issue that has lurked in American politics for years.
They call the United States a democracy, but this is no democracy.
This is a republic.
Democrats and Republicans alike mix up those terms, and the mix-up has become significantly more common over time.
Thanks to the Google Ngram Viewer, an online tool that measures the relative frequencies with which certain phrases appear in published works throughout history, we can map out how wording has mutated over the centuries.
In the 1800s, the era of the Founding Fathers, books written in English used “republic” nearly nine times more often than “democracy.”
Move forward to 2008, the most recent year of the Ngram Viewer’s data, and the shift in language is stunning.
In the modern age, “republic” has fallen by the wayside and “democracy” now appears in print four times more often than its counterpart.
Comparing “Republican” and “Democratic” shows the same unmistakable pattern.
I doubt this change in verbiage was a coincidence. The dramatic rise of “democracy” began in the early 1900s — the height of the Progressive Era.
During this time period, the U.S. moved closer to democracy.
The 17th Amendment allowed voters to elect senators instead of state legislatures, and the women’s suffrage movement culminated in the 19th Amendment blocking sex-based voter restrictions.
These positive, democratic changes in American politics may explain the sudden popularity of the word “democracy” in English writings.
For some reason, though, our language never returned to normal, even though the Progressive Era stopped well short of transforming the U.S. into a full democracy.
Citizens don’t hold direct power, our elected leaders do. Many staples of American governance, such as “majority rule, minority rights,” are also products of republican principles.
It’s worth noting the Framers never used “democracy” or any form of the word in the U.S. Constitution.
They understood democracy, in its original meaning, brings with it bitter consequences such as popular tyranny, which arises when there is nothing to stop a majority group from invading others’ rights.
For better or worse, though, people still call the U.S. a democracy.
This mistake is so widespread it’s often not considered a mistake nowadays.
At least we can find solace in the fact that incorrect labels shouldn’t change our system of government any more than childish name-calling should change a person.
As long as we recognize the underlying values that form our republic, the words we choose to describe them are less important.
But they can be wrong.
mitcchri@indiana.edu
@AtlasMitchell
