don't exactly fit. It's a mixture of both.

However, what the voters want is still important to those elected. They want to be re-elected most of the time.

in historical context and they want a diversion that makes them feel they are making a point of some kind.

It's ignorance, or in the case of those who wish to dismantle America, premeditated ignorance.

is the fact that we are a Constitutional Republic.

Citizens of the United States are subject solely to the rule of law, not men – as men are incapable of ruling justly; conservative elected officials seeking to compel women to give birth against their will or deny gay Americans their right to equal protection of the law are proof of that.

Indeed, that a majority of the states might have placed a Republican in the White House doesn’t mean those who opposed that Republican candidate have ‘forfeited’ their rights.

If conservatives respected the rule of law – acknowledging and accepting the privacy rights of women and the equal protection rights of gay Americans – then the occupant of the White House should be of little issue concerning the rights and protected liberties of the American people.

But conservatives have nothing but contempt for the rule of law, and will seek through judicial appointments to undermine the Constitution and jeopardize the rights and protected liberties of the American people.

The GOP clearly does not believe in democracy, which reminds of the Democrats.

functions as a representative democracy, where the will of the people is expressed through their elected representatives.

The United States is a democracy in the context of its political process: the people are at liberty to remove from office elected officials who are at odds with will of the people, and the people may pursue their desired political agenda by electing like-minded representatives.

And when the people err and act in a manner contrary to the Constitution and its case law, those disadvantaged by the political process may seek relief by means of the judicial process, as the courts representing the rule of law will invalidate legislative measures repugnant to the Constitution.

It is therefore incumbent upon the people to understand and respect the Constitution, its case law, and the rule of law, and to act via the political (democratic) process in accordance with the Constitution – something most conservatives fail to do.

by Frank Luntz many years ago. Bill Buckley used this same phrase on his PBS Program as many times as possible. This is Buckley's Wet Dream we are living today.

is far superior and preferable to a ‘pure’ democracy.

We see proof of this with some European democracies and their ‘hate speech’ laws, where citizens of those countries might lose their liberty for having committed ‘crimes’ only of thought or speech.

Brexit is yet another example of democracy having gone terribly wrong, as such an important issue shouldn’t have been left up to the ‘will of the people’ – with many of the people motivated by fear, ignorance, and bigotry.

And on rare occasions when democracy might get it right – such as the ‘gay marriage’ vote in Australia – we still see democracy’s inherent flaw: that a class of persons shouldn’t be compelled to seek from the capricious people a right both inalienable and fundamental.

Our Constitutional Republic acknowledges the fact that our inalienable rights can be neither taken nor bestowed by any constitution, government, or man – rights never to be subject to the ‘will of the people.’

This is why conservatism poses the greatest threat to the rights and protected liberties of the American people, because conservatives wrongly advocate that whether a woman might have her right to privacy or a gay American his right to equal protection of the law should be ‘left up to the states,’ in conflict with our most fundamental tenet of respect for the rule of law.

They're tyrants who don't want democracy in any form--just a banana republic that give the repunks dictatorial power with zero accountabitlity whatsoever.

It illustrates the hypocrisy common to most on the right.

Conservatives perceive America to be a ‘democracy’ when red states want to ‘ban’ abortion or prohibit gay Americans from marrying.