Civics Made Easy

- Democracy is a word we hear a lot.

Some people like it, some fear it, and others find it confusing.

These days, we often hear that democracy is under attack, that it needs to be saved by us.

But before we do that, if we need to, it might help to know what it is.

And in the process, answer one of the internet's most non-combative questions.

Is the USA democracy, a republic, or something else?

We'll also get clarity from a constitutional scholar and several random Americans, which feels pretty democratic.

I'm Ben Sheehan, and this is "Civics Made Easy".

If you didn't sleep through history or philosophy class, you may remember that democracy began in ancient Greece.

A guy named Cleisthenes devised a system of governing where the people hold the power, not a king or a dictator.

This system became known as demokratia, demos meaning people, kratos meaning rule, the people rule.

And this demokratia had three pillars, one to pass laws, one to do the day-to-day governing, and one to hear legal challenges.

Also, ordinary citizens could participate directly in this government.

And by ordinary citizens, of course, the Greeks meant free adult men, no women, children, or slaves.

Unfortunately, that also sounds familiar.

This democracy was available to anyone who met that narrow definition of everyone, and those free adult men could show up to an assembly meeting, debate laws, and vote on them.

Around 5,000 dudes would attend these meetings weekly.

Think city council meets pickup basketball with less practical footwear and the same amount of shouting.

But the other branches, the council and the courts, people were picked for those at random, by lottery, not elected.

The Greeks thought elections favored the rich and wouldn't lead to a true representative cross-section of society.

Huh.

And to be on the council or courts, you had to again be a free man, but at least 30 years old.

Council terms also lasted a year and you could only serve two in your life.

Finally, governing decisions were made by a majority vote, and the courts had hundreds of jurors selected newly each day to make bribery impossible.

Honestly, other than the slavery and excluding women, which are admittedly big hiccups, this seems fair.

And it shares a lot with our current system, three branches, majority rule, citizen participation.

But unlike Athens, the US is not a direct democracy.

Instead of millions of us going to DC every week to write laws, we elect people to do that for us, which brings me to another word, republic.

That comes from ancient Rome.

Instead of citizens voting directly on laws, representatives do it for us.

Republic comes from the Latin res publica, public matters, which are handled by a small group for a larger one.

And once again, no participation from women or slaves.

If that sounds like America, Ben Franklin agreed.

At the end of the constitutional convention, a socialite named Elizabeth Willing Powell asked Franklin what he and the other delegates had created, a republic or a monarchy.

His response, "A republic if you can keep it," has since been used by journalists, politicians, and moderately cool people to remind everyone that a republic only lasts, if its citizens engage.

But now we have a problem.

If America is a republic, why do we keep calling it a democracy?

To settle this, I cold emailed Eugene Volokh and he agreed to talk.

He's a constitutional scholar and a Stanford law professor whose work has been cited by the Supreme Court.

He also graduated from college at 15 years old and got a perfect SAT score in math at age 10.

Honestly, the more I read about him, the worse I feel about myself, so I'm stopping his intro here.

Let's go right to the chase, Eugene.

Is America a democracy or a republic?

- Yes.

In fact, both.

It's a republic commonly defined as, "A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them."

I'm quoting there the American Heritage Dictionary.

It's also a democracy, which is defined as, "Government by the people exercised either directly or through elected representatives."

But republic and democracy aren't the opposites.

- So, just to be clear, direct democracy means citizens vote on laws, which we have sometimes at the state and local level with ballot measures.

And representative democracy means we elect people to make laws for us, which sounds like a republic, but it's democratic, because we elect those representatives and we're also a constitutional republic, because we have a constitution?

- Exactly.

You could imagine a republic that is not constitutional in that the governing body can change the rules anytime.

So, republic was really something where the sovereignty was in the people rather than in a dictator or in an absolute monarch.

And it could be exercised in all sorts of ways.

- Okay, lightning round.

I give you a term and you tell me in one word, if it accurately describes the constitution.

Democracy.

- Yes.

- Republic.

- Yes.

- Representative democracy.

- Absolutely.

- Constitutional republic.

- You bet.

- Constitutional democracy.

- Sure.

- Democratic republic.

- You could call it that, although people generally don't.

- Representative republic.

- Sure.

Although again, most people don't say that.

- Democratic democracy.

- Absolutely not.

That's not the way the English language works.

- So, when people angrily say that the US is a republic and not a democracy, or vice versa, what do you say?

- So what I say is, well, all right, you say so, but what's your authority for that proposition?

I mean, I've got authority.

I've got the dictionary of today, but I also have John Adams.

I have Thomas Jefferson.

I have James Wilson.

I have John Lawson, the most influential chief justice of the Supreme Court in the 1800s maybe at any time.

They're all on my side.

- Why do you think people are so opinionated and particular about this debate over words?

- So, what you need to understand about words, what all of us need to understand about words is two things.

One, is they're important, but the second is they're not really as important as we often think they are.

So, when we have the words democracy and republic, you know, they're useful, they're useful to remember, but they're not going to resolve debates about how we ought to structure our government, resolve debates about whether should we have an electoral college or not?

Well, electoral college is in some ways undemocratic.

In other ways, it is democratic.

We should ask about the substantive question.

- So, in the US can be both a democracy and a republic, but we haven't always been that democratic.

America's founders feared direct democracy.

One reason was that historically democracies died.

The one in Athens lasted around 200 years, and that was a city of 250,000, not a country of, at the time of our founding, four million.

The founders also didn't want us ordinary people having too much power.

They wanted a hierarchy to protect their property, because a lot of them were wealthy landowners.

So, they opted for something else, a government by the people from a distance.

At the federal level, at first, we the ordinary people could only elect members of the House.

Senators were chosen by state lawmakers, the president was picked by the electoral college, and judges were nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and still are.

So, voters only chose one half of one branch of government.

And who were those voters in most states?

Like in ancient Greece and Rome, free adult guys.

Some states also required them to own property and some said they had to be white.

That was American Democracy 1.0.

But once those free adult bros got a taste of democracy, they wanted more.

It's kind of like, if you give a mouse a cookie.

Once the mouse takes a bite, he's going to want to elect his senators.

And that's how our democracy began to grow.

First, in the electoral college.

The people who vote directly for president, the electors, were initially wealthy, educated dudes who could vote however they wanted.

They were selected by state lawmakers.

But then in the 1820s, more states began letting us choose the electors and making those electors vote how we wanted, no more free choice for them.

We the people still weren't voting directly for president, but we suddenly had way more of a say.

Also around this time, the electorate began to expand.

States started removing property requirements to vote.

Decades later, we abolished slavery, gave Black people and former slaves US citizenship and protected their voting rights, though some states spent the next 100 years trying to get around that.

Still, the pool of eligible voters was growing.

Then in 1913, we allowed ordinary people, not state lawmakers, to elect US senators.

Seven years later, women got voting rights, and four years after that, Native Americans got citizenship and voting rights, but faced similar voting obstacles as Black Americans.

But in 1964, America banned poll taxes and passed the Civil Rights Act, and the following year, the Voting Rights Act.

In 1971, we lowered the minimum voting age to 18.

So, just to recap, participation in elections went from a handful of guys who owned property in 1789 to 182 years later, nearly all adult citizens regardless of race, sex, wealth, or class.

We went from a republic with a democracy garnish to a republic with so much democracy that, as Eugene clarified, we can now be called both a republic and a democracy.

But democracy isn't just a type of government.

It's our participation in that government, the kind Ben Franklin hoped we'd do.

Things like voting, organizing, volunteering, attending meetings, registering neighbors to vote, contacting representatives, protesting, helping a community solve its problems, teaching people civics.

A constitutional republic or democracy can exist on paper, but it only works or lasts when ordinary people step up.

Joining me today are three Americans with very different backgrounds, politics, and ideas about civic engagement.

We have Jennifer Gast joining us from Cape Girardeau.

She's a Republican, small town business owner, and someone who believes strongly that democracy requires us to talk to people with whom we disagree.

Here in studio with me is Donna Jaffe, a grassroots organizer who spends her days talking to voters across the political spectrum, finding creative ways to get people involved in civic life.

And to my left is Jax Honeycutt, who is only 16, can't even vote yet, and somehow already participates in democracy more than most adults.

He's founded a peer civics group, serves on a youth advisory board, and competes in mock trials.

I'll start with you, Jennifer.

What does democracy and civic participation mean to you?

- People used to talk to one another and people used to not be afraid to talk to one another, and now it seems like it's not so much like that.

I think, everybody can agree that we want this world to be a better place and we really cannot do that unless we talk to one another.

So, in terms of how important it is, it's super important, because it's the way we live our lives.

- I think, we've lost our way a little bit.

And I loved hearing what Jennifer had to say.

We've had over 15,000 conversations with swing voters in all over the country, asking them how they feel, having real conversations about things that are important to them.

- What does democracy mean to you?

- Democracy is the promise of America, the idea that so many people can come from so many different backgrounds and still come together to create the greatest nation on Earth, because America has become synonymous with the idea of democracy.

- Jennifer, was there a moment at some point in your life growing up that made you decide that you wanted to be civically engaged?

- Both my mom and my dad were very much engaged in the political arena.

We always had, you know, fundraisers at our house.

I specifically remember when I was in college, I was vice president of the College Republicans and I was able to pick Dan Quail up at the airport, which was really cool.

My parents also hosted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and that's when I was in college, so that was cool.

So, I've kind of always grown up in the political arena.

I didn't know any other way.

- Jax, what was the moment for you when you decided that you wanted to become civically engaged?

- I think, it all sort of came down to supporting my mother.

My mother has a chronic illness, and so, I was wondering why it was so expensive for her to get her healthcare.

And so, watching President Obama put forth the Affordable Care Act and really saved my mother's life in a way, it was very touching to me to see the direct effect that politics and policy have on people and Americans.

- Donna, what was that moment for you?

- When I was young the polling place was in the auditorium of the elementary school, and my parents would come and take me out of class, and I'd stand on line with them as they were getting ready to vote.

And they would talk to me about why being there with them was more important than being in the classroom, and how important it was to vote and to make my voice heard.

- Jax, how are you able to participate in this democracy?

You are 16, you are not able to vote, but you've been engaged for a decade, it sounds like at least.

What are some of the ways that you have gotten involved aside from voting?

- Even though you are not allowed to vote and you may be a minor, you still have very basic civil liberties, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to call up your senators and call up your representatives, and, you know, essentially demand and ask and plead with them to get the legislation that you want to see affect your community passed.

Finding things that you can do on a smaller scale.

If you don't feel going up to, you know, going up against the federal government, you can just do something to serve your community and serve yourself and serve your family.

- How often do you interact or speak with people with whom you disagree politically?

- There are some people who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats or dyed-in-the-wool MAGA people, and they are entrenched in their beliefs.

But for the most part, there are a lot of people who are in the middle, and the similarities really come to the forefront when you're having conversations with people about their values.

- Jennifer, do you find yourself interacting with people of differing political views?

- I do.

I do.

You know, I've got friends that have completely different political views than myself.

I totally agree that you are a product of your environment, and the way you were raised will shape the way that you see life and it will shape the way you see people.

It will have something to do with how you feel and what you care about in the future.

And you know, a lot of times, you know, people might disagree with you, but they ultimately, believe good things.

- What are some ways that we can increase civic engagement for people who are not currently involved?

- Let them know that what they can do does and will make a difference.

You know, I started a nonprofit years ago.

We've helped over 40,000 children.

It's called Student Santas.

We help kids at Christmas time who would not have anything.

People don't think about, you know, just working and volunteering in your community.

That volunteer work, that is civic engagement.

And, you know, people, when they see that what they're doing makes a difference, they want to be more active.

- I would like to just make a challenge to everybody to contact three people they know and encourage them to vote in the election, because while we can protest, and we do, at the end of the day, our voice is expressed loudest when we vote.

- I'm so grateful for all of you for getting engaged.

It is fascinating how we started out as a republic with some democracy, then grew into a republic with way more democracy to the point we can be accurately called a representative democracy, constitutional democracy, democratic republic, or constitutional republic, but not a direct democracy unless you meet ballot measures at the state and local level.

Because once we the people tasted democracy, we pretty quickly realized we wanted more, which reminds me.

Cookie?

- Thank you.

- Jennifer, I would send you one, but I don't think you want to have it after two days in the mail.

- No.

Thanks though.

- I'm Ben Sheehan, and I hope you learned something.

They're dairy and gluten-free, because my stomach is a dictatorship.