About a month before Election Day 2020, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) raised a few eyebrows by declaring via social media that the United States is “not a democracy.” The Utah Republican added soon after, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”

Eight months later, the New York Times published a report on the severity of Republican efforts to thwart our electoral system, and it quoted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) making related comments.

Some other Republicans embrace the notion that they are trying to use their prerogatives as a minority party to safeguard their own power. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said the endeavor was the essence of America’s system of representative democracy, distinguishing it from direct democracy, where the majority rules and is free to trample the rights of the minority unimpeded.

“The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for,” the GOP senator said. “The Jim Crow laws came […]