Article 1
Section 1: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
In a democracy I would actually be able to vote on issues and have my voice heard. That's clearly not happening in the USA.
In what way is your republic "representative" then?
I have a degree in political science, and I've never seen anyone who knows what they are talking about use the term "representative republic". The US is, in theoretical structure, both a federal republic and a representative democracy, albeit one with very unequal representation. In practice, it tends to work as something like a plutocratic aristocracy, but its considered impolite in many circles to the point that out.
> I also only get to pick between 2 old white guys every 4 years
That's only true if you choose to restrict yourself to participation in only Presidential general elections, and not all the elections for other offices or earlier parts of the cycle (and also requires an unusually broad definition of "white" [e.g., including Barack Obama, 2008 & 2012] and "guy", [Hillary Clinton, 2016] and "old" [prior to Trump, the last three presidents were elected at ages 46, 54, and 47--though in the first and last cases their opponents were significantly older--which is certainly middle-aged but hardly "old" for a head of government.])
I appreciate the design of America that incorporates democratically electing one's representives in the House of Representives while balancing the downsides of such a process against other forms of voting.
It's necessary to capture the passions of the body politic at large - which democratic voting does! - but it's also necessary to introduce mechanisms that can serve as a counterweight to the madness of crowds that have been frequently observed in history in America and other countries.
If you haven't done so, do read The Federalist Papers.
What good is protections against tyranny of the majority if it just results in tyranny of the minority? The majority will only play a rigged game for so long - as you are beginning to see with Democrats seriously discussing court packing should they win power.
One party has gotten Presidents in twice over the past 20 years without winning the popular vote. Those two presidents who did not win a majority of support got to pick 4 Supreme Court justices, wildly swinging the ideology of the court in the process towards minority views.
A Wyoming voter has vastly more power then a Californian voter in every federal election. When the Founders set up the Senate, Virginia was something like 15x more populous then the least populist state. California is 66x more populous then Wyoming today.
In my opinion - power has shifted far too much to the minority. On issue after issue you can find things like gun control, climate change, healthcare, minimum wage, paid maternity leave with public support in the 60% plus range, yet nothing happens due to the tyranny of the minority (and a good dose of corruption).
We need massive democratic reforms in this country if we want to be able to solve the problems of the coming century, and yes the minority needs to lose some of its protections. I don't think "but tyranny of the majority" holds up as valid argument against reforms given the context of the last 20+ years.
Which is why CA has 53 congressional representatives and WY only has one.
So even in the House which is supposed to be most representative of the majority - the minority has a significant advantage.
The Federalist Papers are centuries out of date. They do not comprehend how modern politics functions. Hamilton could not imagine a multinational corporation with an unlimited purse and fewer limits on their free speech than an ordinary citizen.
I think where we disagree is what to do about it.
There seems to be this prevailing cultural view that a democratic election is always good and always produces wise and just results. Where as people like me are fearful of what starts as the wise vox populi devolves into a crowd, transforms into an angry mob, and then the fun really begins!
I always like a line that was attributed to George Washington...
"George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to 'cool' House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea."
By directly electing Senators, we have reduced that cooling function.
The Senate has turned into a freezer :)
Obviously we are a "democracy" (we vote) and a "republic" (for most of history and the rest of the world, this means we don't have a monarch. The US is the exception, where we take it to mean that we have a representative democracy a la Fed. #10.)
Let's say the popular vote (i.e. the mad crowd) votes 45% party X and 55% party Y, but party X get 55% of the representative seats and party Y gets 45%. Why is this fair? Why shouldn't party Y get more seats? Why can't the members of party Y act as a "damping factor" (instead of a "counterweight") to the demands of their own voters?