The Democrats warn us almost daily that re-electing Donald Trump in 2024 will spell the end of democracy. But, technically, do we even live in a country whose constitution established us as a “democracy”?

What Have We Got?

When Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was greeted by a woman who asked him point-blank, “Well, doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Mr. Franklin’s terse response: “A republic, madam — if you can keep it.”

It is significant that Mr. Franklin did not say that the form of government that the Founders created was a democracy. We are, in fact, as most of us know (or should certainly know), a constitutional republic.

Checks and Balances

We are not a country where 51% of citizens can outvote the other 49%, then tell them what they can and cannot do. We are a representative government with checks and balances built in as guaranteed safeguards against a majority of strong-willed individuals lording it over the meek, timid, and disadvantaged. Both majority and minority have a true say in how every citizen is governed.

Free Speech Is Key

The First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech, has always been key if we hope to “keep the republic.” Once that is co-opted — then controlled and censored — an unsuspecting public will be easily swayed into granting an elite cabal limitless power. Manipulating the masses is the goal.

Election season is always ripe for the misuse of our First Amendment. If the leftist elites who currently control the many facets of our culture — the press, academia, entertainment, business, and yes, even many religious institutions — continue to do so unabated, the noble idea and ideals upon which America was established will soon become a regrettable lost cause.

The Battle to Control America

Obviously, two powerful forces remain in the battle to control America through the presidency in this year’s election. On one side, the Democrats with their twisted definition of America as a democracy, aided by a Deep State, far-left, globalist, RINO, and woke contingency; on the other, all those pushing back, whether part of the America First and MAGA crowds or the myriad other freedom-loving citizens of all stripes who are now awake to the evil that has accelerated over these past three years.

The Fundamental Change of This Country

Since the 2020 presidential contest, which the powers that be declared was “the most secure election in American history,” a majority of citizens have developed serious doubts about the validity of the result. Another percentage naively believe that those sorts of Third World, election-stealing shenanigans could never happen here. And yet another, smaller group knows for a fact that the election was not secure in the least, because they themselves were flat-out involved in rigging and stealing it. From November 3 to November 6, 2020, a group of Democrat operatives blatantly and quite effectively ended the concept of free and fair elections, thus negating one of the keystones of self-rule by We the People.

Building upon that 2020 “win,” Democrats and their tyrannical gang have since targeted anyone who stands in the way of their fundamental transformation of this country, President Trump chief among their adversaries. As Trump so often reminds us, the left is not after him, they are after independent, free-thinking, non-compliant Americans. He’s just standing in their way.

And stand he has.

Trump Still Stands

After everything the left has manufactured to take Trump out, every sort of imagined or concocted crime, he still stands. And, undeterred, fights back. He refuses to simply fade away. Democrats and their machine on the left roll out their revenge and retribution daily on him because he had the audacity to run for president in the first place and then to win. 

From the primary trail over the past several months, Trump has also highlighted that, besides honest elections, another crucial facet necessary for a country to exist as a sovereign nation is a secure border. We can all clearly see what the Biden administration has allowed. Millions of illegal aliens have simply strolled across our wide-open borders and are now who-knows-where. Is this a hallmark of e a government that is concerned about sovereignty or security in any way, shape, or form?

Destructive Features

Other traits indicative of the Democrats’ brand of democracy include publicly labeling political adversaries as “domestic terrorists”; using excessive force and exaggerating charges when arresting dissenters; imprisoning protestors, such as those involved in the January 6 demonstrations, without charges or due process; championing mob violence and looting from the progressive far left; and many other tactics that might more readily apply to fascism than democracy.

All these destructive features touted by the Biden administration help to reveal the “democracy” to which the Democrats refer. And we need to squelch it sooner rather than later.

November 5 would be just in the nick of time.

A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

Albin Sadar is the author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. He was formerly the producer of The Eric Metaxas Show.