British legend and wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill once opined that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” In 2024, the future of this amorphous word caused beard-rending and pearl-clutching on an epic scale. Nowhere was this truer than in the American halls of power and supportive Fourth Estate. But were the harbingers of doom wrong? And did they even understand precisely what they were lamenting?
First Things First
The United States is not a democracy. The constitutional republic founded more than two centuries ago utilizes democratic processes, but it is not a democracy. So, when cries of the “death of democracy” rang in the ears of voters last year, what was the fear? It seems the prevalent lament was perhaps an effort to usurp the mechanism of American politics, specifically the Electoral College…
