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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/republicans-are-suddenly-afraid-democracy/616685/
Republicans Are Suddenly Afraid of Democracy

“We’re not a democracy,” Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted in the middle of Wednesday night’s vice-presidential debate. He was reacting to something he’d heard onstage there, in his home state of Utah. Another tweet: “The word ‘democracy’ appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few.” Hours after the debate Lee was still worrying the thought: “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”

Why did Lee choose this moment—less than four weeks before an election in which his party seems likely to suffer defeat—to make the familiar, even pedantic, point that we live in a republic rather than a pure democracy? Why did he insist on the point so vehemently that he neglected to mention that power in the American system ultimately lies with the people, which means that our system could also be called a representative democracy? Did he mean rank as in “foul,” “rancid,” or “outright”? If the last, does that mean the tyranny of the majority leading to perverse rule by “the few”? What did this short, misleading course in Civics 101 have to do with anything?

My guess is that Lee wasn’t just being pedantic. Worried about an election in which the people can express their will, Lee was laying the groundwork to contest the results or block an elected majority from governing.