USA: Republic or Democracy?

A democratic Republic.

People often say the USA is not a Democracy because the constitution provides protection for the minority. 51% cannot take away certain rights of the other 49%. In a Direct Democracy, that would be the case. (Two wolves and a sheep voting what's for dinner).The USA is not a Direct Democracy.

But when people use the word Democracy, they usually mean a country with free and fair elections, so according to that definition, the USA is a Democracy.

Of course the form of government is a Republic, the head of state is a president, elected by the people, and not a monarch.

Democracy is not a form of government. For instance, the United Kingdom is a Constitutional Monarchy, with a monarch as head of state, but it is also a democracy because there are free and fair elections and the people decide the de facto leaders.

So the USA is both a Republic (form of government) and a representative democracy (free and fair elections).

It's currently Neither. Though some aspects of it are still republic based most of it no longer exists for various reasons. Here some of examples of things that are not Republic.

The USA has a number of different bureaucracies such as the EPA FDA and so on. These Bureaucracies are not subject to the same checks and balances that congress is supposed to be held too. Their leaders are not elected they are appointed. They impose fees (taxes), ban various things, and form regulations of just about every single in the USA. They come to their conclusions via appointed panels (not elected officials) which often times have very jaded opinions from the start. They rule with an Iron fist and your only hope is to fight them in the courts. How ever businesses can't afford to do this. A state or federal bureaucracy is backed by the government and has un limited funds for litigation in court. A business does not.

This is not of a republic or democracy base.

It's a federal republic. Some states, California specifically, would be considered more democracy because they allow laws to be passed by the people through ballot initiatives.

A political system where people vote is popularly called democracy even if the technical definition isn't quite right. Just about every US president, not just Obama, has referred to American democracy, mainly because talking about republicanism doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

The Cold War was billed as democracy vs. communism, not federal republicanism vs communism.

The US is a democratically elected republic. There are non-democratically elected republics, as the former USSR was made up of republics as well. And Iran considers itself an Islamic Republic as the people do vote for people who have been approved by the clerics.

America is and has always been a Democratic Republic although traces of that are hard to find these days amongst all the bitching and complaining.

A republic.

Our country fluctuates between the two. So its whatever we need it to be at whatever time.