Its “Democratic” Party and we’re all federalists

Whacky Nation proves its name:

They’re the Democrat party.

I spent many years in the news media during the 70’s and 80’s …. and I never once wrote copy that read “Democratic Party.” It was always “Democrat Party.”

Forget your new spin, liberals. There is nothing democratic about your party. There’s actually nothing democratic about our great United States of America. We’re a republic (under God to many) with a republican form of government. We elect representatives who create laws for us.

You are such losers. You must have flunked civics, if you ever took it. Must be sad to be a Democrat.

First, I don’t doubt that Mark was a reporter, but I do doubt whether he was a good one. He obviously (if he’s telling the truth) didn’t consult his AP Stylebook very often. The stylebook, pretty much the bible of usage for reporters, takes this stand on Democratic Party:

Capitalize both the name of the party and the word party if it is customarily used as part of the organization’s proper name: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party.

Capitalize Communist, Conservative, Democrat, Liberal, Republican, Socialist, etc., when they refer to a specific party or its members. Lowercase these words when they refer to political philosophy (see examples below).

Democratic when referring to the party, Democrat when you’re talking about the member of the party.

On the second notion that our country is not actually a democracy, but rather a republic. I don’t disagree there, but I do disagree that there is something different about the two. Democracies and republics are not exclusive of the other. You aren’t one or the other.

Here’s a civics/history lesson for ya: The Democratic Party began as the Democratic-Republican party, and morphed into the more current Democratic Party in the 1830s or there about. In those early days it was common for those Jeffersonians to refer to themselves as Republicans
(the current day Republican Party was formed by Whig Party activists in the 1850s).

The term “Republican” was a reference not to a system of government but rather a political philosophy that rejected monarchy and corruption.

But, if you’re a stickler for systems, according to the Central Intelligence Agency, we’re a “Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition” and the World Fact Book says:

The Constitution creates a federal system, in which political power is divided between the national government and the governments of each state. The national government is sometimes called the federal government. The Constitution also creates three separate branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—to share the work of creating, enforcing, and interpreting the laws of the nation. The branches are represented by Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

So, actually we’re neither republican nor democratic, we’re federalist.