Do you remember the "fiery but mostly peaceful" reporter?
Yeah, he's been promoted, and this is what he's up to:
I couldn't stop laughing the whole time, just thinking of how scared the DC wine moms are gonna be while watching this.
"They don't think we're a democracy!" they tell each other at margarita night after kickboxing class.
CNN trotted out one historian to talk about how the words "republic" and "democracy" were interchangeable, and then included clips from ... Reagan and Bush to prove that our two-and-a-half-century republic is actually a democracy.
There's an easy way to show CNN is a clown show without getting into a boring civics lesson. This:
Have none of the lefties ever stopped to think why our two major political parties are named "Republican" and "Democratic"?
We think about the party divide in ever-shifting ways: Republicans are pro-gun, Dems are anti-gun.
But there are reasons the parties have these names. The word "republic" was understood in its modern form by the 1630s. It's most basic meaning is "public affairs" and is applied to rule of the people through appointed representatives. "Democracy" is similar in that it means "rule of the common people."
But there are VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES.
HENCE WHY THE TWO PARTIES HAVE BEEN DUKING IT OUT SINCE OUR GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHERS WERE BORN!
I won't go into the details because you should have been taught this in school. Instead, I'll leave you with a few quotes from the Founding Fathers, who built a constitutional republic built on democratic ideals that sprang directly from biblical teaching.
Alexander Hamilton said this in 1787 as the Constitution was being formed:
Those who mean to form a solid republican government, ought to proceed to the confines of another government. As long as offices are open to all men, and no constitutional rank is established, it is pure republicanism. But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy. The difference of property is already great amongst us. Commerce and industry will still increase the disparity. Your government must meet this state of things, or combinations will in process of time, undermine your system.
Boy does that sound like a warning for today!
The Founders knew that liberty would cause human flourishing, but also disparity. A rising tide would lift all boats, but the rich would get richer. In a straight democracy, where jealous human nature is allowed to exercise its will through mob rule, the rich would be torn down. Inevitably, this type of "open republicanism" would lead to the mob hiring a strong man - a tyrant dictator - to impose their wishes on others by force.
Remember, Hamilton was saying this decades before Karl Marx, and 250 years before Kamala Harris would hit the road to stump about rooting out "inequities."
Another one, from John Adams's 1814 letter to John Taylor. I'll insert modern punctuation where needed in the quotes ahead.
I do not say that Democracy has been more pernicious, on the whole, and in the long run, than Monarchy or Aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as Aristocracy or Monarchy. But while it lasts it is more bloody than either.
Adams was upset at John Taylor for misquoting him on the ills of democracy. This was now decades after the Founders had warned about democratic rule and France had fallen to the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte by way of a people's revolution.
Adams argued that while monarchy and aristocracy are flawed and corrupt, they at least have checks on their power through structure and tradition.
We curse religiously the memory of [Bloody] Mary for burning good men in Smithfield, when if England had the been democratical, she would have burned many more...
Adams talked about the thousands killed by the guillotine - if only he could have seen the 100 million killed by communist people's revolutions turned into tyranny across the 20th century.
Oh! my soul! I am weary of these dismal Contemplations! When will Mankind listen to reason, to nature or to Revelation?
Well, Mr. President, it is the Year of Our Lord 2024 and I am still waiting.
I might hav[e] exhibited as many millions of plebeians sacrificed by the pride, folly, and ambition of their fellow plebeians and their own, in proportion to the extent and duration of their power. Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.
OH MY GOODNESS A MAGA EXTREMIST!!!
When people overthrow a system, there is a power vacuum. In America, we only avoided the horrible backlash because men like Hamilton and Adams knew the sinful nature of humans is prone to evil things, and it needs checks and balances to protect against the absolute corruption of absolute power (as Lord Acton said almost a century later).
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.
When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.
Individuals have conquered themselves - nations and large bodies of men, never.
Translation: Even the most loving, wise, and intelligent person will go full Lord of The Flies when given the reigns of power.
CNN smirks when it interviews Trump voters who know somewhere down deep that mob rule passed off as "muh democracy" is wrong. They make fun of the MAGA-hatted crowds that think the tyranny of the majority eventually leads to the tyranny of the one - that every experiment in open democracy (what most would call socialism today) has turned into a dictatorship.
But CNN is wrong.
And I think they want to be wrong.
Because I think CNN knows more about power and human nature than they are letting on, and they want that power to be theirs.
In 1773, Benjamin Franklin wrote these words, which have turned into a meme quote over the ages:
In my own private concerns with mankind, I have observed that to kick a little when under imposition, has a good effect. A little sturdiness when superiors are much in the wrong, sometimes occasions consideration. And there is truth in the old saying, that if you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you. Now is the time to be wolves and kick against the powers that are maliciously wrong, because we didn't keep the Republic that Franklin warned us to keep.
We have actually become a democracy that could easily become a dictatorship. Our Constitution is dead. If we don't fight back against mob rule now, there won't be anything left to save.
Then the meme quote that so often gets attributed to Franklin comes true.
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