“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” – former President Bill Clinton.

I am teaching a couple of classes at Auburn this semester, one of them being the basic American government class many students have to take as part of their core class requirements.

Like most classes any of you have taken from elementary school and beyond, I try to cover the more basic concepts and then move to more specific items as the class progresses. One of the first items we cover is what kind of government we have here in the U.S.

I tell my class it is fine if they would like to call our country a representative democracy or a republic. Both are essentially true.

Somehow this now could be considered a controversial view in certain circles. Luckily for me, most of my class was more interested in planning football tailgates and fraternity and sorority swaps, so we moved through the topic swiftly.

However, only a few days passed before I saw an editorial on state media outlets from Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl. He argues it is important for us to understand the U.S. is a republic and not a democracy.

Wahl is not the only person making this argument as he and others – usually from conservative-leaning groups – believe this distinction is important.

Wahl is correct in stating we do not live in a pure – or direct – democracy. A direct democracy would require the people to vote on every significant issue considered by government at the national, state and local levels. This would be exhausting and is obviously unworkable for a country of over 330 million people.

Leaving direct democracy aside, the U.S. government system is often defined as a representative democracy. This is simply a system where the public elects people to vote on our behalf on all issues considered by government.

While this explanation does not cover all the intricacies of our government system, I do not have any problem with saying we live in a representative democracy.

I also do not have any problem with Wahl saying we live in a republic. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a republic as, “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”

The representative democracy and republic definitions are essentially the same.

Wahl further narrows his explanation of government from republic to constitutional republic. This just means the republic operates under the guidelines established in a governing document, in this case the U.S. Constitution. Again, I see no problem here.

Wahl seems to believe it is vitally important we make the distinction between the terms representative democracy and constitutional republic. Frankly, this confounds me. As someone who works in an academic world where precisely defining terms is expected, Wahl’s line of reasoning screams academia without any practical importance.

Imagine you cut your finger and ask me for a Band-Aid, and I responded, “Sorry, I can’t help you. I only have bandages, not Band-Aids.” Anyone would understand you wanted a bandage to stop the bleeding, whether or not the bandage was the brand name Band-Aid. While there is technically a distinction between the two, there is not a practical difference.

As best as I can make heads or tails of this argument, Wahl believes democracy is a means for a majority mob to trample the rights of minority groups and will lead to socialism. He seems to imply democracy actually operates outside the framework of our Constitution, like the two concepts are incompatible.

I do not understand this. Our representative democracy operates under the Constitution. If you wanted to further clarify our government as a constitutional representative democracy, I think this would be extremely similar to a constitutional republic. Why would this be dangerous?

Democracy is somewhat limited by the Constitution, but when the people believe the Constitution should be amended, as has been done 27 times in our country’s history, democracy is the tool used to do it.

The political party Wahl represents is the party of Abraham Lincoln who believed in the ideals of a democracy through a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” and Ronald Reagan, who once said, “One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.”

The recent tendency of a few Republicans to view the idea of democracy with suspicion is odd and out of character from the party’s traditional views on the subject. This ideological shift stinks worse than being sprayed by a skunk – or a polecat. Call it whichever one you like.