Is the US a “republic” or “democracy”?
The US is a republic. Problem is, so many people do not know the difference between a republic and a democracy, and those that do may not be very honest about it. Also, some states are more democratic than others. Complicating this is the fact that the two largest political parties use names that obscure their differences. A republic runs by representation. The voters choose their representatives, the representatives vote on the issues. A democracy would be if the individual voters were responsible for voting on particular issues. We do have that in California, for a variety of “ballot propositions,” but that is only one of the ways laws are passed in California. A true democracy is not practical. People are not well-informed of the facts, the arguments on the issues from all sides, etc. It would be a full-time job to be a voter in a true democracy. But some people think the word Democracy is better, and so they use it rather than the admittedly rather stuffy term “republic.” Actually,
