The Democrats warn us almost daily that re-electing Donald Trump in 2024 will spell the end of democracy. But technically, do we even live in a country whose constitution established us as a “democracy”?

When Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the story goes that he was greeted by a woman who asked him point-blank, “Well, doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin's terse response: “A republic, madam — if you can keep it.”

Two powerful forces remain in the battle to control America through the presidency in this year’s election.

Significantly, Franklin did not say that the form of government that the founders established was a democracy. We are, as most of us know — or certainly should know — a constitutional republic.

We are not a country where 51% of citizens can outvote the other 49% and then tell them what they can and cannot do. We are a representative government with checks and balances built in as guaranteed safeguards against a majority of strong-willed individuals lording it over the meek, timid, and disadvantaged. Both the majority and the minority have a true say in how every citizen is governed.

The First Amendment guaranteeing free speech has always been key if we hope to "keep the republic." Once that is co-opted — then controlled and censored — an unsuspecting public will be easily swayed into thinking in line with whatever ensures that an elite few can gain and maintain power. Manipulating the masses is the goal.

Election season is always ripe for the misuse of our First Amendment. If the leftist elites who currently control the many facets of our culture — the press, academia, entertainment, business, and yes, even many religious institutions — continue unabated, the noble ideas and ideals upon which America was established will soon become a regrettable thing of the past.

Two powerful forces remain in the battle to control America through the presidency in this year's election. On one side, the Democrats with their twisted definition of America as a democracy, aided by a deep state, far-left, globalist, RINO, and woke contingent; on the other, all those pushing back, whether part of the America First and MAGA crowd or the myriad other freedom-loving citizens of all stripes awake to the evil that has accelerated over these past three years.

Since the 2020 presidential contest, which the powers that be declared was "the most secure election in American history," a growing majority of citizens have serious doubts about the validity of the result. Another percentage naively believes that sort of third-world election-stealing shenanigans could never happen here.

And yet another, smaller group knows for a fact that the election was not secure in the least, because they were flat-out involved in rigging and stealing it. A group of Democratic Party operatives blatantly and quite effectively ended the concept of free and fair elections, thus negating one of the keystones of self-rule by “We, the People.”

Building upon that 2020 “win,” Democrats and their tyrannical gang have since targeted anyone who stands in the way of their fundamental transformation of this country, President Trump chief among their adversaries. As Trump so often reminds us, the left is not after him. The left is after independent, free-thinking, non-compliant Americans. He's just standing in the way.

After everything the left has manufactured to take Trump out, every sort of imagined or concocted crime, Trump still stands. And, undeterred, fights back. He simply refuses to fade away.

Democrats and their machine on the left roll out their revenge and retribution daily on Trump because he dared to run for president in the first place. Then he had the audacity to win. Twice!

From the primary trail over the past several months, Trump has also highlighted that, besides honest elections, another crucial facet necessary for a country to exist as a sovereign nation is a secure border. We can all clearly see what the Biden administration has allowed to occur at the southern border. Millions of illegal aliens have simply strolled across our wide-open borders and are now who-knows-where throughout our country. Does this indicate a government that is concerned about sovereignty or security in any way, shape, or form?

Other traits indicating the Democrats' brand of democracy include publicly labeling political adversaries as “domestic terrorists”; using excessive force and exaggerating charges when arresting dissenters; imprisoning protesters, such as those involved on January 6, without charges and due process; championing mob violence and looting from the progressive far left; and so many additional tactics that might more readily apply to fascism than democracy.

All these destructive features touted by the Biden administration help to reveal the democracy to which the Democrats refer. And we need to squelch it sooner rather than later.

November 5 would be just in the nick of time.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.