Yes it is. “Democracy” from the Greek: “common people rule” and “Republic” from the Latin: “the thing, public.”
Republic and democracy mean the same damn thing, rule by the people as opposed to rule by a monarch.
Republic and democracy mean the same damn thing, rule by the people as opposed to rule by a monarch.
This is oligarchy. The 'democratic' process is a smokescreen, and an increasingly thin one.
Look up 'liquid democracy'. It's the best example of what an actual democracy might look like if we did it. We won't, but I also enjoy Blade Runner and Star Trek, so there's no harm in fiction.
It's like people can no longer imagine living under a totalitarian state... where you don't even get a vote, and if you don't like what's happening and you say something about it, you're shot. That's literally the way things were done before democracies and republics existed... it's still the way things are done in places like North Korea.
The 'third parties' argument is a painful joke, statistically speaking [0 1 2]. You can make all sorts of arguments as to why but the fact is that without support from D or R you can go get fucked.
This raises the question - are there only two opinions? With the obvious answer - of course not. We could say 'well, maybe people fall generally into two camps', but that doesn't really pass muster either, does it? I have friends on both sides of the aisle and I agree with all of them on some things. This is evidenced by the amount of voters registered third party despite the abysmal election numbers [3].
So what's going on here? Well, people are being strategic. We're on first-past-the-post in most places. This means you're typically voting not for what you want but for what you don't want. That is not a system of representation, it's a sports game where the prize is some cosmetic social program changes and not much else.
Mamdani is an excellent example of what this system does to third party candidates. As soon as there's a legitimate threat to the entrenched parties, fundraising spikes massively for the opposition [4].
Not getting a vote under this system wouldn't be more totalitarian, it would be more honest.
0 -https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown
1 - https://www.senate.gov/senators/SenatorsRepresentingThirdorM...
2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_and_independent_me...
3 - https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-a...
4 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/nyregion/mamdani-adams-do...
Quick note that totalitarian states often have elections in which the population is allowed to vote.
Aleksandar Matovski. Popular Dictatorships. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/popular-dictatorships/D...
There are a vast number of ways in which people can be denied a legitimate opportunity to obtain the policies most want (making a democracy less legitimate), but to list a few:
* People are allowed to vote, but votes aren't counted fairly.
* The voting system can be vulnerable to vote splitting (e.g. First Past the Post) or have other vulnerabilities that can lead to an outcome where the majority would have supported candidate A over candidate B, but B wins. This can lead to dynamics where tactical voting means only the candidates endorsed by the two best known parties have a chance, even if both of those parties are captured by minority interests. Generally the duopoly perpetuate the poor voting system to protect their interests.
* The leaders of any movements challenging the incumbents can be targeted before they have a chance to run - e.g. with trumped up legal charges, defamatory claims, violence either blatantly from the government, or by supporters which goes unpunished / is pardoned.
* Voters fear that if they vote against the incumbent, they'll face consequences.
* Voter demographics considered less likely to support the incumbent face barriers to vote, such as demands to provide documentation they might not have.
* Special case: Voting is restricted to citizens, but there are populations of people who live long term in the country but don't get a vote. Citizenship is not granted to or even stripped from people who are considered less likely to support the incumbent.
* Media is state owned, and is biased towards the incumbent, preventing the public from learning about alternative policy platforms in a meaningful way.
* Media is privately owned, and biased towards the interests of the owners of the media, preventing the public from learning about policy platforms opposed to the owner in a meaningful way.
* There are significant barriers to becoming a candidate (financial, or requiring a lot of work which costs a lot of money), preventing non-wealthy groups from being able to run.
* Corporations or ultra-wealthy are allowed to selectively fund large amounts of money (beyond the means of normal citizens), allowing policy platforms they support to drown out policy platforms in the interest of the public.
* As you mentioned, electorate boundaries are set in an unfair way (gerrymandering).
There are a lot more - but the summary is that there are many ways to undermine a democracy, and there are many countries that are nominally democratic, but aren't really.
From there elections kept getting less and less free, but it was a gradual affair - strangle the opposition TV first, then newspapers, then finally start playing directly with electoral fraud; fake counting etc. The purpose, though, wasn't to ensure a win - his popularity was always sufficient for that. No, it was to make it a win so resounding that agitprop could refer to it as a definitive popular mandate. And for parliamentary elections, to get the supermajority they needed for constitutional amendments. But that is how authoritarian democracy works - the majority votes in the government that cracks down on political dissent because the majority wants that. No amount of free press or free and fair elections would change that.
It seems this small wealthy faction can send people to concentration camps, collaborate on genocide, and undo the constitution. (Maybe you and I have different definitions of democracy.)
Or maybe because our government is not as bad North Korea’s I’m supposed to be fine with this state of affairs. (Thanks for the reassurance.)