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Am I missing something here? The United States at least is a constitutional republic. I must have missed the day in college government class when they renamed that form of government "liberal democracy", presumably in an effort to convince more people to vote for "liberal democrats" as their representatives.

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The United States is a liberal democracy, a constitutional republic, an oligarchy, a military kleptocracy; it is centralized, federated, and a union of equal states; it is an authoritarian scientific bureaucratic apparatus, a traditional common-law community; its judges are elites skimmed from the top of Harvard, men elected by peers, and unqualified friends of the Mayor; it is unicameral and bicameral depending on your location. It is all of these things balanced against one another precariously and stably, at minima, maxima, and saddle points in thousands of millions of dimensions.

Ya, if nothing else, the events of the last 2 years have assured me of the United States' "stability".

"Liberal" here is just the adjective form of liberty.

A "liberal" democracy is a democracy is one that enshrines the classic individual freedoms (speech, assembly, religion...) e.g. the United States.

A "illiberal" democracy is a democracy that doesn't, e.g. 20th century Singapore.

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