What is the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?

My understanding is that in Republics we vote for the people who vote on laws, and in Democracies we vote on the laws directly.

@Mariah So a Republic is where you vote for a person to be in charge of you?
Isn’t that more like communism?

The names of the particular parties are not necessarily indicative of a preferred form of government. The United States is a republic because it is a “representative democracy” – each citizen above the age of majority gets to vote for a representative.

True Communism doesn’t have representatives, it has the Party.

@zenvelo So what is the main difference then? Obama is a Democrat and Bush was a Republican. Was one better than the next?

A republic is a form of democracy.

@Eggie “One better than another” is a matter of opinion as to the policies represented by the parties.

In the U.S. we have a generally two party system, but we do not alter the structure of the government depending on the party in power. “Republican” and “Democrat” are labels that date back to the middle of the 19th century. Our government’s structure is defined in the U.S. Constitution, not by the whim of the electorate.

Each party has some philosophies regarding government (usually, the Republicans don’t like a big Federal government, while Democrats like a big Federal government to intervene to help people out.) But both like the structure.

The government of the United States is officially known as a democratic republic, which means it is a representative government (that’s the republic part), and those representatives are voted on in an election (that’s the democratic part). Notice that the “r” in “republic” and “d” in “democratic” are lower case, and do not refer specifically to the political parties. .

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are the two major political parties within the United States. There are other parties, such as the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. The Republican Party (sometimes referred to as the GOP (Grand Old Party) was founded in 1854. The Democratic Party was founded in 1828.

Each party reflects the political philosophies of their members. Until recently, there was such a thing as a liberal or progressive Republican, just as there were conservative Democrats; recently there has been such a polarization, that the Republican party reflects a Conservative philosophy, and the Democratic party reflects a more progressive philosophy.

The distinguishing feature of a republic is simply that it has at its head an elected president as opposed to a monarchy, wherein the very word reveals the skinny. The United States is (are) a republic or representative democracy, which means that we vote as @Mariah says for representatives who suppsedly govern us. This insertion of representatives between the people and their laws has the great convenience of allowing the buying off of the “government” by those of means should the people “step out of line”

So a democrat is the same as a republican?

The words are meaningless in the United States as regards the facts on the ground.

Republicans are not necessarily pro-republic while democrats are not necessarily pro-democracy. The meaning of the parties have become completely removed from the forms of government of the same name.

It’s a tricky business. There are republics and democratic republics. The thing distinguishing the 2 is that the latter usually has some document or charter placing restrictions on the government (constitutional democracy) regardless of the so called will
of the people (or anyone else).

The word “democracy,” in its broadest sense, refers to any state in which sovereignty ultimately rests in the citizenry. The most common forms are direct democracy, in which governmental decisions are voted on by the citizenry as a whole, and representative democracy, in which the citizenry elects a subset of itself to make governmental decisions.

The word “republic,” in its broadest sense, refers to any non-monarchical state. The more common usage, however, refers to a non-monarchical government in which governmental decisions are made by a representative body. This representative body need not be elected by the people, and so it need not be a democracy.

Once we understand these two definitions, we can see that it is possible to be both a democracy and a republic. A democratic republic is a form of representative democracy in which the head of state is elected by the citizenry, thereby satisfying the definitions of both a democracy and a republic. The United States is one example of a democratic republic. (It is also a federation, a presidential system, and a constitutional state. None of these terms are mutually exclusive.)

The names “Democratic Party” and “Republican Party” do not reflect any deep disagreements over the democratic and republican elements of the United States’ system of government. In fact, when the Democratic Party was founded in the 1790s, it’s members first called themselves “Republicans” and then later “Democratic-Republicans.”

One reason for this is that there was no official recognition of political parties back then, and so there was no need for an official name. This had changed by 1854, when the Republican Party was founded. By then, parties were expected to have formal names, so they called themselves the “Republican Party,” and its members were called “Republicans. This did not cause confusion because by that time the Democratic-Republicans had taken to calling themselves “Democrats.”

Two important things to remember, then, are that (1) “Democrat,” “democrat,” “Republican,” and “republican” refer to four different things, and (2) political parties are just teams that represent ever changing constituencies and ideologies. The Republican Party used to be the more liberal party in the US, and the Democratic Party used to be the more conservative party. The Democratic Party used to be the more anti-government party in the US, and the Republican Party used to be the more pro-government party.

In general, a party’s distant past is irrelevant to its present, and its present may very well be irrelevant to its distant future. If I may indulge in a moment of opinion, then, this is why I find it a bit absurd to get caught up in the political fortunes of parties (as opposed to policies or ideas). It’s also one of the many reasons I neither endorse nor affiliate myself with any political party.

The big difference here is we are a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy. The rights granted by the constitution cannot be directly removed or added by the populace through a majority vote. It takes a representitive gov’t to do that through a constitutional convention. Good thing too.

@yetanotheruser gave the answer closest to what I was going to write. I’ll add that being a Republican or a Democrat has nothing to do with the US being a democratic republic in terms of the parties support of being a republic or not. For instance there are people in both parties don’t like that we use our representatives to elect our president rather than a direct popular vote. On rare occasion the popular vote does not coincide with our electoral college (representatives) regarding who gets elected for president. There are people in both parties who still support the electoral college.