Are We A Democracy? Or Are We A Republic?

Civics 101

NHPR

History, Government, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There's a complaint we get pretty often around here, that our tagline contains the word "democracy," but the United States is *actually* a republic. So...do we need to make a change? What did the framers think about democracy? How do we compare to Athens and Rome? And finally, how democratic are we anyways? Guests: Juliet Hooker: Royce Professor, Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University Paul Frymer: Professor of Politics, Princeton University Click here for our episode on where the 1965 Voting Rights Act stands today. Click here to sign up for our newsletter! Do you love the show? Please donate to support our work! CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And that's New Hampshire's public radio Civic 101 podcast and these are its co-hosts and producers
0:08.2	Hannah McCarthy and Nick Kaffadice. Thank you so much for being with us here this morning. It's a pleasure to be here, Jesse. Thank you
0:16.0	Thank you. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah, I remember this
0:19.5	You want to just tell everyone real quick what it was? Yeah, sure
0:22.7	In November of 2021
0:25.2	Nick and I were on Washington Journal on C-SPAN talking about our show and I remember
0:32.2	Very clearly Nick when they opened the phone lines. Let's talk to James who's calling from port andulous
0:38.7	Washington James good morning. Good morning, Jesse. Are you guys there? We're here. Go ahead James
0:45.5	Yeah
0:47.0	being piped by parts and you guys from New Hampshire. Um, how do you keep?
0:52.2	Um
0:56.2	Your your own opinions to yourselves on your show. I know you're just you're just working on one subject and I want to play one caller's specific beef with us and he's not alone
1:08.1	Let's talk to Murph who's calling from Germantown, Tennessee. Murph good morning
1:14.8	Thank you for taking this call. I have a bone to pick with you two guests
1:18.9	I
1:20.9	Talked American government and civics for 22 years in the American public school classroom in Tennessee
1:28.0	United States of America is not a democracy
1:32.6	There has been never will be
1:35.2	It is a republic
1:37.4	And we pass laws and govern ourselves through our elected representatives and a rule of law
1:43.6	Do you want to investigate a democracy? I suggest you look at the democratic republic of the Congo or the former Soviet Union who allowed people to vote
1:55.2	But they only had one choice
	...

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