What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority.

Lippmann’s remark frames “democratic society” in starkly pragmatic terms: not as a realm of broad participation or deliberative ideals, but as a system whose stability depends on the majority’s willingness to suppress a minority that seeks revolutionary change. The definition is deliberately instrumental (“for certain purposes”), suggesting he is isolating one functional feature of democracies—self-preservation—rather than offering a full normative account. The line also hints at a tension central to modern liberal democracy: the promise of political freedom coexists with coercive power used to maintain constitutional order. Read critically, it can be taken as warning that majorities may justify repression in the name of democracy itself.