Quote:If they are not going to represent you why elect them?
Most probably because you
think they will represent you, which they are
supposed to do.
Quote:If a republic is quite different to a democracy why does your government present the US as being democratic,
I don't know which government you are referring to when you write "your government", but that's not the main point.
Look at history, and you will see that the founders of what we today call "representative democracies" were opposed to
democracy.
That term, "representative democracy", refers to the institutions that were progressively born out of three modern revolution: the English, the American and the French. And at the start, they were absolutely not considered as a variety of
democracy.
Rousseau for instance, condemned political representation. He saw a great difference between a people making its own laws, and a people electing representatives to do it for them. And even the partisans of political representation saw a fundamental difference between the regime they defended and
democracy; they referred to their regime as a "representative government" or as a "republic".
For example, Madison said: "The true distinction between these [democracies] and the American governments, lies in the total exclusion of the people, in their collective capacity, from any share in the latter".
Much more could be said on the subject, but you get my point.
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