Its less democratic, but not completely undemocratic.
It’s completely undemocratic. Public opinion has no influence on policy whatsoever. Most Americans are in favour of Medicare for all, of legal abortions, of rising taxes on corporations and the most rich people, and much much more. But study after study shows that public opinion has no influence on policy, as in, they’re not even correlated.
Yeah, I wasn’t referring to the concept of representative democracy itself, I was referring to the particular case of the US (though I’d extrapolate it to most liberal democracies in western countries)
It is an indirect democracy, rather than a direct one.
Ahem. Indirect democracy AKA representative democracy AKA republic is political system, where laws are voted by representatives who are elected by citizens. USA is indirect indirectracy. Or idiocracy. Like Putin’s Russia, but with bells and whistles.
Direct democracy is rare beast. In it laws are directly voted by citizens on referendums.
![The US is Politically to the Right of [Other] Democracies](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/21301eb3-0348-4db4-9f02-82fd35987e02.jpeg){kind=link}
It is an indirect democracy, rather than a direct one. Its less democratic, but not completely undemocratic.
That being said, I do think the system is broken in another fundamental way.
It’s completely undemocratic. Public opinion has no influence on policy whatsoever. Most Americans are in favour of Medicare for all, of legal abortions, of rising taxes on corporations and the most rich people, and much much more. But study after study shows that public opinion has no influence on policy, as in, they’re not even correlated.
I feel like that’s less of a problem with the way a representative democracy works, but rather with corruption and thus capitalism
Yeah, I wasn’t referring to the concept of representative democracy itself, I was referring to the particular case of the US (though I’d extrapolate it to most liberal democracies in western countries)
Ahem. Indirect democracy AKA representative democracy AKA republic is political system, where laws are voted by representatives who are elected by citizens. USA is indirect indirectracy. Or idiocracy. Like Putin’s Russia, but with bells and whistles.
Direct democracy is rare beast. In it laws are directly voted by citizens on referendums.