It is a Constitutional Republic with the only democratic process being the representatives you elect .... represent you ... sometimes... if they feel like it.... unless they have been bribe^H^H^H^H lobbied to do otherwise.
The only nexus between republic and democracy in this case would be the Constitutional Republican Guarantee clause. Since that has essentially never been adjudicated we can't know for certain whether - at least in Constitutional terms - a Republic does convey democratic rights.
If you elect incompetent, or corrupt, or evil representatives, it's still a democracy.
[1] A citizen was considered to be any person born of Greece, white and male.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
I doubt that the Athenians had the present-day concept of "white people". Wikipedia says that citizens "had to be descended from citizens", so maybe at least in a certain era nobody known to be descended from people coming from outside of Athens could be a citizen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Citizenship...
Edit: looking at one of the references, it seems that there was a year when explicit citizenship lists were drawn up based on all free men who lived in Athens (maybe with some kind of ethnic exclusion at that time too?). From then on until Pericles, children could be added to the list if their fathers were on the list. After Pericles, children could be added to the list if their mothers and fathers were on the list.
Most importantly, while there were a few questions settled by referendum where all citizens could vote, most were settled by randomly allotted juries. This meant there was little advantage to forming political parties around popular demagogues, or run well-funded propaganda campaigns.
Athenian democracy got knocked down many times and came back every time, except the last. The second-to-last time, a bunch of immigrants had fought for the liberation and restoration of democracy, and some leaders argued forcefully that they should be awarded citizenship for this. But they didn't get it, the existing citizens voted against.
The reason democracy finally failed was probably this. The Athenians knew (especially the poor) just how unusual and lucky they were to have political freedom, so they were fiercely protective of it - and didn't want to dilute it by sharing it. Eventually a large part of their society had so little stake in democracy that they didn't bother to restore it.
No. If you democratically elect terrible representatives who eat puppies, it's still democratic.
> Also, what about federal judges? None of those are democratically elected, and they get to interpret all the laws in ways that have great consequence.
You don't have to elect every government official for it to be a representative democracy. Democracy means that the ultimate power is vested in the people. If you elect representatives who appoint judges, the judges are still appointed by the power of the people.
> Hence, America's government is a little more complicated than "democracy", although some parts of it are surely "democratic" (e.g. the house of reps).
No government is simple. America is very clearly not a direct democracy, nor are all officials elected, but it is still a democracy.
Democracy is a tyranny of majority. The founders did NOT want a democracy.
A republic is a land where political authority isn't formally heritable personal property (e.g., basically a not-monarchy), a republic can also (like the US) be a representative democracy. It can also be an authoritarian dictatorship. It can also be a direct democracy.
The laws bind it.
I suppose since the constitution is completely ignored you might have valid points.
You clearly are using "democracy" in a very peculiar sense. If you narrowly define "democracy" as "lawless mob rule", then your statement is true, but that's not what the word democracy is generally used to mean when discussing political systems.
So yes, it is a personal definition. Scholars don't use this definition. Pundits don't use this definition. The common man doesn't use this definition. It's a BS definition, and if it weren't, it would be pointless and redundant because "majority rule" captures this already.
How can you have that without at least a one line constitution that says, more or less, "The majority rules"? You beg the question, sir.
You very narrow definition of "democracy", majority rule without a constitution, isn't possible. Thus your definition is useless and therefor meaningless.
What matters is what the people want now and for the future of their United States... are you going to live forever more adhering to the rules of dead people? Seems er... pointless.
That's where you're wrong. A democracy is a state where people have (or nominally should have) equal power to affect society's collective decisions. Not all implementations of "majority rule" meet this criterion.
Political decisions affect everyone, thus everyone should have an equal share in determining which ones we take - at least a priori.
We can cede some power if we decide that a certain class of questions are none of our business (for instance, delegate some decisions to a local level, or give Sharia courts jurisdiction over their adherents to take an uglier example). Or declare that some questions are non-political in nature, and should be decided by some sort of experts. But the decision about what is our own business must always be our own business.
Another way of saying the same is that all legitimate government comes from the people - as opposed to e.g. the divine right of kings, or a "natural" aristocracy.
Because it is designed as a (representative) democracy. Its also a federal republic whose constituent units are mostly-representative [but some with significant aspects of direct] democracies.
They absolutely do represent you.
What do you think the representatives doing when they're trying to fuel up the corporations in your district? They're representing your interests by making sure that the jobs stay where they are, just not the interest of the American people.
The senators represent the state's interest, the representatives represent the district's interest.
Can someone fill me in?