Dear Random Dudes on the Internet, We defined modern democracy decades ago. Not just voting. Includes protecting liberal freedoms, an independent judiciary, and more. Can be representative or direct. You can stop telling us it's actually a republic Thanks, Political Scientists
By this definition, the US was not a democracy before women’s suffrage, and probably not until Civil Rights. At least not a full democracy.
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The idea that pure democracy is dangerous and should be constrained by liberalism (constitutionalism, separation of, ect) is not new. Unfortunately modern liberals often fail to argue the point because of our reliance on the liberal status quo. To our shame and perhaps defeat.
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It is important when arguing for liberalism that we do not use democracy as a qualifier because it inevitably results in tyrants taking power through Democratic means and us having no legitimate way of criticizing them in the public sphere.
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For example it's very popular to assume that every strong man in the world wins elections by cheating. While electoral fraud is most definitely a real problem it is not impossible for tyrants to have a genuine base of majority support. Assuming otherwise trips us up a lot.
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I would agree with a not a full democracy assessment. The problem with saying it's not a real democracy however is that it assumes democracy is exclusionary to illiberalism. I believe it is very important that we come to understand that that is not the case.
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