Chapter 1: American Democracy May Be Doomed: It's a Good Thing We Have a Republic

In this chapter, the authors highlight three celebrated phrases that have had outsized importance in the evolution of America as a republic – the system of popular rule the Founding generation preferred and the political system still in place today – to the current sentiment that the nation is more of a democracy. These passages have contributed to a broadening of the conception of citizenship. They have been leveraged by civil rights leaders and social justice advocates over the past two centuries to fundamentally, and permanently, rebrand the American polity in a different image.