Democracy vs. 'Our Democracy'

These similar phrases may have very different meanings.

Before stepping down as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi spoke a lot about “our democracy.” Many other Democrats in the past couple of years have done the same. What exactly do these politicians mean by “our democracy”?

It turns out that when leaders on the Left speak of “our democracy,” they probably mean something very different than the average American. While democracy and “our democracy” sound similar, they are in many cases exact opposites.

Democracy defined

Democracy is a way of governing that depends on the will of the people. In a pure democracy, every decision is made by a vote of the people. The U.S. has a representative democracy in that decisions are made by our elected representatives. America can also be described as a democratic republic. We have a republic or union consisting of 50 states. Our representatives are democratically elected by citizens who have the right to vote in free elections using secret ballots. The citizens of the United States and other countries with democracies are considered free nations because they are largely free from government tyranny.

Our democracy defined

“Our democracy” does not refer to U.S. democracy as it was created or as it is even exists today. Instead, it refers to how Leftists want our country to be. “Our democracy” really means their democracy, not yours or mine. Ultimately, Leftists want their democracy to move further to the left and converge with Marxist ideology, which they consider to be on the far left. Since I consider the political spectrum to be circle instead of a line, I place Marxism at the bottom of the circle alongside fascism. Totalitarianism consists of both communism and fascism—two ideologies that are very much the same.

Marxists and Leftists like to use phrases like “our democracy” or “the people’s democracy” as euphemisms for totalitarian regimes. Here are some examples:

North Korea (communist): Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Laos (communist): Lao People’s Democratic Republic

China (communist): People’s Republic of China

Former North Vietnam (communist): Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Current Vietnam (communist): Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Former East Germany (communist): German Democratic Republic

These communist nations have one-party states that do not allow political opposition, free elections, free press or other democratic policies. The listed nations are classified by political scientists as undemocratic or “not free.” All have totalitarian governments in the Marxist-Leninist style.

Word appropriation in the U.S.

Even communists in the U.S. are claiming to support “democracy.” Here’s what the Co-Chair of Communist Party USA, Joe Sims, had to say before the 2020 election.

In a few weeks, voters will decide who controls Congress. Will it be those who outlawed abortion, blocked voting rights, and now want to repeal gay marriage, or will the forces of democracy win a working majority? Democracy itself is on the ballot.¹

An ex-communist and U.S. citizen, Bella Dodd, remarked that when communism came to America, it would come under the label of “progressive democracy.”

It will come in labels acceptable to the American people. We will take the U.S. under labels we have made very lovable; we will take it under liberalism, under progressivism, under democracy.²

The bottom line

With all of this misuse of the word “democracy,” I choose to use the name “U.S. democracy” for the United States government as it was created by our founders in the U.S. Constitution. When you hear the crossover word “democracy,” try to determine how it’s being used. People on the Right generally use the original definition—that of a free nation. Watch out for people on the Left who flip flop between the original definition and their favorite radical definition. Quite often phrases like “our democracy,” “people’s democracy,” “inclusive democracy” and “liberated democracy” are euphemisms for governments that are unfree and undemocratic.

1. Sims, Joe. Democracy on the ballot. Communist Party USA, 9/20/2022. https://www.cpusa.org/article/democracy-on-the-ballot/

2. Kengor, Paul. The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception and Infiltration. TAN Books, 2020.