The media's daily outbursts about the danger to democracy posed by the current administration, while highly amusing, omit a key piece of information.  The United States is not a democracy; the United States is a republic.   However, a common argument today claims that democracy as defined in modern times is not significantly different from republicanism as defined in the founding era.  For example, the historian Ralph Ketcham argued, "The founders would not have been opposed to the modern connotations of the word 'democracy,' nor would they have used the word 'republic' to mark out a distinction from those connotations."  But this is demonstrably incorrect.  Moreover, the widespread acceptance of the word 'democracy' to describe America is not a trivial matter. For the most part, the founding fathers were strongly opposed to both monarchy and democracy.  A monarchy was defined as rule by a king...(Read Full Article)