This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I am Gaius. Germantus is here. The Imperial Project.

It's a story that Germanicus and I enjoy. Germanicus, democracy, democracy, democracy. Everywhere I see it, it's like a brand name.

Pretty soon they're going to use it on household projects. What do they mean democracy?

America doesn't have a democracy.

Are they aware of this?

Democracy is infinitely elastic as a political identifier. i mean that

you had democracies in the ancient world

in the greek city states but the democracy there

was in many ways resonant to the kind of concept of democracy

that it's users describe today.

In other words, it is the big man, the first citizens, the rich, essentially the ruling elites

of the city-state were the democracy.

And essentially, when Blue or Democrats talk about our democracy,

they mean themselves as congressmen and women, as heads of corporations, as what we call oligarchs, because effectively you have a very small

group of engaged people. Some of them are called activists. Others are called contributors. And those with

money and those who are courtiers in the imperial city and throughout the precincts of the palace

and those who were privileged enough to appear in the formal mainstream media, they're all players.

And it is their democracy, or as they would put it, our democracy.

And that bears no relation to what we know of or our forebears called a republic.

The republic is Congress.

Congress no longer works for the people. Right. It works for the big men. Is the public

aware of this, that it is being hoodwinked or is it? Does it know anyway? Well, you know,

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