Unfortunately, the answer is politically and definitively confusing. Our form of government is both a democracy and a republic. Fortunately, the debate is beginning all over again and it was started by ordinary people who feel that our government is out of control.
Dictionaries contain slightly different definitions of a democracy and a republic.
However, most dictionaries agree that a democracy is government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. A republic has two forms and definitions. A republic can be a form of government with an elected president instead of a monarch, or a form of government with an elected president and elected representatives responsible to the people. Cuba's President Fidel Castro, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein and the presidents of many totalitarian governments fit the first definition of a republic. However, they are tyrannical presidents that wield the sovereign power of monarchs.