Sharon McMahon
speaker
324 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 25 Feb
Sharon McMahon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It started with a far-right group called the John Birch Society who wanted to put forward this idea that it's not a democracy because if you were going to have a democracy, that would mean that everyone, including people of color in the South, would have to have equal rights.
And so this idea of like, it's a republic. So they're not defending democracy. They're saying it's not a democracy. It's not a democracy.
They don't like it when you say it's a democracy. They will try to correct you and say it's not a democracy. It's a republic.
So all constitutional republics are democracies, but not all democracies are constitutional republics. America is both of those things. It's both a Republican and democracy. And this is one of those things that like gets under my skin. I'm always so curious what the point somebody is trying to make when they say that.
Well, you don't even understand it because it's not a democracy.
Democracy is mob rule. This is another thing people will say. Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep trying to decide what to have for dinner. This is another thing that people will say. Oh my God.
I mean, it's pretty good. I don't get it.
The majority are going to vote to eat the sheep. So it's mob rule.
That's right.
That's absolutely true. Literally from the very beginning, before the modern Republican and Democratic parties, which have not existed in the format that they exist today for very long, you have the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, which were very much this idea of how much should the federal government do versus how much should the state governments do.
And obviously leading up to the Civil War, we have this continual tension between what states have the right to do and the federal government has the right to do. You see it with abortion today. Another state's rights issue. What should the states have the right to do?
Of course, you understand Los Angeles needs different environmental rules than northern Minnesota, where I live, where we have too much water as opposed to not enough water, you know, where we have almost nobody that lives there. Of course, it makes sense that there are certain things that fall under the purview of states. But to what extent? To what end?
Is it fair that women in one state should be able to receive a certain type of medical care while somebody in another state should not be able to receive that kind of medical care? And so you're right that this is a continual balancing act that the federal government is trying to find the right happy medium.
And right now, with the more conservative-leaning Supreme Court, they're tipping back towards this sort of states' rights issues. Yeah.
More about the collective. Yes.
I bring this point up all the time, too, that we actually cannot have one political party. We need multiple political parties. One political party is a dictatorship, right? So we can't just be like, well, I hope the people I like get into power and screw the rest of y'all. That's actually not a healthy democracy.
We're better off by having our ideas challenged and by having the best ideas rise to the top. We should have enough allegiance to the country and to the Constitution to be willing to acknowledge when somebody who belongs to a party that we do not vote for, when they have a good idea. We should have enough humility. To be able to be like, you know what?
I didn't vote for you, but I think that's a good idea. And integrity. Yes. Some of the best leaders from history have done that exact thing. I know you have team of rivals on your shelf right above your head.
The Doris Kearns Goodwin book, it's a great book about how some of the best leaders from history have brought people into their cabinets who some of them did not agree with them. They did not just hire a bunch of yes men who were like, whatever you think, great idea, of course.
Yes, that's what this is about, team of rivals. So is George Washington. George Washington hires both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson who hate each other. See, thinking behind that is I don't want you to just pat me on the head and tell me I'm pretty and I come up with all the good ideas. Yeah, this is important stuff. Right.
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