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Documenting my point about Critical Thinking vs. Kool-Aid Drinking

I must be doing something right. I got numerous comments on my Critical Thinking vs. Kool-Aid Drinking tweet from people telling me the US is a “constitutional republic” versus my reference to it as a “democratic republic.”

I wondered why so many of the comments referenced this particular point instead of addressing or arguing about the bigger picture topic suggesting thinking over drinking.

Wanting to be accurate, I did some research. As I suspected, right- wingers appear to like to refer to the Constitution and republic because these are words that best align with the Kool-Aid they’ve consumed. Likewise, there are examples of left-leaners using the word “democracy” because their flavor of Kool-Aid best aligns with that term.  

A balanced and well-done NPR.org article headlined ‘Is America a democracy or a republic? Yes, it is’ makes the case for a more open-minded and critical look on both sides of the aisle: “What do we call the system of government in the U.S.? Are we a democracy or a republic? The conundrum is, well, as the common expression goes, ‘as old as the republic itself.’…when critics call this an attack on democracy, some election deniers respond by saying the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a republic…But a democratic republic is us. Exactly. Throughout our history we have functioned as both. Put another way, we have utilized characteristics of both.”

The article continues, “The people decide, but they do so through elected representatives working in pre-established, rule-bound and intentionally balky institutions such as Congress and the courts. The government seated in Washington, D.C., represents a democratic republic, which governs a federated union of states, each of which in turn has its own democratic-republican government for its jurisdiction…both sides want to be the champions of both democracy and the Constitution, and to advertise themselves as such to the voters…Biden at Independence Hall used the word democracy 31 times, including three times in one sentence. He used the word republic just twice…Republicans, by contrast, have seemed of late to be stressing the role of the republic and its restraint on democracy.”

Among other things, critical thinking involves looking at a variety of facts and opinions from a number of sources and connecting the dots based on the evidence and arguments that make the most sense.

A report from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga frames critical thinking this way: “Critical thinkers are skeptical, open-minded, value fair-mindedness, respect evidence and reasoning, respect clarity and precision, look at different points of view, and will change positions when reason leads them to do so.”

It’s time for critical thinking in place of small-minded Kool-Aid drinking that has infected so much of our political system.

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