[austin-cheney]

The US and Israel are elected governments, but that should certainly not presuppose democratic. The Roman Republic was, for example, fully elected but simultaneously it was intentionally autocratic to the elite. That is why it fell to a dictatorship which then increased the liberty and standards of the people.

Democracy is the directness by which social participation equates to governance. The US is a federal republic with only two parties each bound by the same hostile funding system that benefits political contributions over the vote. That is far from democratic.

[scoofy]

Democracy and Republic both mean “normal people are in charge of government” and are in opposition to monarchy. The distinction you are referring to was a contrived interpretation in the federalist papers to make a point.

[austin-cheney]

No. Democracy and republic are fundamentally different. You want to equivocate them because there is a vote. They have always been different going back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans who each invented those terms.