Is the USA a democracy?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     While I do think there is merit to the conservative republic-democracy distinction, it gets invoked in many instances where the word "democracy" clearly was not being used in that sense and the statement that "we are a republic, not a democracy" therefore becomes a non sequitur.

     Something similar happens with the word "racism", where you can always count on a leftist to exclaim that "minorities can't be racist" when you use the term in its colloquial sense, as if their statement has any relevance. As it happens, ideologues seem to have a hard time understanding that words can have multiple definitions.