We don't call this a representative democracy. We're just not a democracy. Majority vote doesn't even determine the president. Even in the house and the Senate, bills have to pass BOTH in order to become law...and remember, Senators don't line up with population figures...they represent whole states. The definition of republic is 2000 years old. It's okay to use it.
A representative republic is the system we have in the US, which is by definition not a democracy. They're two very different concepts, and they are mutually exclusive.
This is basic civics. It's taught, or I hope it's still taught, in grade school. It's not controversial, it's not surprising, it's fact.
We are a representative democracy and a republic. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
When people say things like "US is a republic, not a democracy", they're using the archaic definition of "democracy" from 200 years ago. Modern English has a different definition.
Seems like the vast majority of those who make the 'we are a republic not a democracy' type have misunderstood both terms and conflate republic as representative democracy and democracy as only direct democracy.
That's technically true (the best kind of true) -- a representative democracy is a republic --, but the problem that the poster was pointing at was that the people are not being actually represented by our elected representatives.
Let's be real, the word democracy doesn't just mean direct democracy. Our "republic" is and always has been a representative democracy, and it's perfectly appropriate to classify the U.S. as a democracy. Republic and democracy are orthogonal concepts, we are both. The word republic just means our leaders aren't chosen by blood or inheritance. Since we elect our leaders, we are a democracy.
It's a constitutional republic / representative democracy. Republics and democracies aren't mutually exclusive. It's certainly not a direct democracy, but that doesn't make it not a democracy.
You're incorrect about what a democracy and a republic are. The US is both.
A republic is a system where each head of state is chosen by the people in some form, not necessarily by voting (res - of, publica - public). Contrast with Monarchy.
A Democracy is a system where the goverment's decision process is based on the population that it serves (demo - the people as in "demographics", cratia - to govern), this is determined by voting so decisions can be made according to the majority. In the particular case of modern democracies, because of the unyieldiness of having the whole population vote on every measure, we use what's called a representative democracy, where we choose someone to represent via voting us when deciding something. Contrast with dictatorship.
The US is (by Constitutional design) both a representative democracy and democratic, federal republic.
“Republic” alone is correct, but overly nonspecific; essentially any government that isn't a hereditary monarchy or similar system where government power isn't private and heritable is a republic.
> The definition of republic is 2000 years old.
Well, sure, there is a definition that old (older, actually), but the one you seem to be using (the colloquial American one referring specifically to a system of elected representatives) is much newer, peculiar to American non-technical usage, and equivalent to “democratic republic” and very close to “representative democracy” (differing only in that the latter can coexist with constitutional monarchy.)
Sigh. It's a representative democracy and a republic. The terms aren't incompatible.
Just because the dichotomy was James Madison's hobby horse and he scribbled it down in Federalist No. 10, doesn't mean that it is gospel. The US has been referred to as a representative democracy since its founding.
We are a representative democracy and a republic. And in some ways a direct democracy. The “we’re a republic” “point” is usually made by the least informed among us.
We don't have a "representative democracy" in the US. We have a representative republic. There is a very wide gap between what you believe our system of government is and what it actually is.
Just because you call something a democracy doesn't mean it is so. If something is a republic, you can call it a representative democracy analogously, but not literally. Just like a zebra is a striped horse but not, you know, a horse.
Can you address anything I wrote that had substance?
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