It's not, it's a republic. In fact, the Founding Fathers considered democracy a terrible form of government.

"Democracy is the most vile form of government" (James Madison)

"A simple democracy is the devil's own government." (Benjamin Rush, signed Declaration of Independence)

"Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy..." (John Adams)

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." (Thomas Jefferson)

Many, many more at http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com/democracy_republic_quote... (sorry about the choice of web site, but the selection of quotations is impressive.)

That’s simply a discrepancy in definitions. ”Democracy” as used in your quotes is not “democracy” as used elsewhere here. With democracy the people you quoted meant something more specific than the people using it here.

Today democracy is simply a catch-all term.

That Jefferson quote shows a lot of chutzpah for a slave owner.

Yeah, true. But I imagine his comment was about a law that absolved all debts. Democracy had a rocky start, including bread-and-circuses laws. Folks were not used to wielding voting power, and misused it terribly for a time.