Mike Lee

Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican, compared “pure democracy” to tyranny on Tuesday.

“Pure democracy = > tyranny,” he said in a social media post. “Constitutional republic = > liberty.”

Lee was referencing a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who is—perhaps mistakenly—credited with the saying, “a democracy is nothing more than mob rule.” The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has called the quote “spurious,” although most founding fathers opposed direct democracy, through which the electorate votes without representative middlemen.

Lee, who regularly posts inflammatory content, didn’t explain how direct democracy is like tyranny, which involves absolute ruling.

Alice Clapman, former senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, has drawn a line between the two systems. She wrote in a 2024 article for State Court Report, a legal news outlet, that “pure” democracy has rightfully withstood state attempts to undermine its benefits for residents.

“In several states across the country, legislatures and state officials are undermining direct democracy through a variety of tactics — from trying to raise the threshold for citizen initiates to pass, to making it harder for them to qualify for the ballot, to drafting biased ballot descriptions intended to dissuade voters from supporting them,” Clapman said.