> Small clarification: the US is not a democracy. It is a democratic I would say that 1) definitions are descriptive of how people use them, as much as they a

> Small clarification: the US is not a democracy. It is a democratic I would say that 1) definitions are descriptive of how people use them, as much as they are prescriptive. Perhaps more so. 2) the term "a democracy" is usually used in the binary: Do this countries people choose their leaders or not? Are there voters who "are responsible for the actions of their government" or not? i.e. Democracy vs Autocracy. The parent commenter makes it very clear that this distinction is what they were getting at: > Americans are especially responsible because the US is a democracy and not a dictatorship. To be sure, there are forms of democracy such as "direct democracy" or "democratic republic" and degrees of it, such as a "flawed democracy" or a "new democracy". But the idea that the USA does not fit into this general binary category - as the word "democracy" is used in common speech that you well understand - is not warranted.