Strips

@knif

The US IS a "democracy", particularly a "presidential republic", a form of representative democracy in which public decisions are made by people elected to represent the people, with constitutional limits on the power of elected officials and a system of checks and balances. However, the constitution itself may be changed if people want it enough (amendments). Other forms of democracy include parliamentary constitutional monarchies (UK and Canada) and parliamentary republics (where both executive and legislative powers reside in Parliament, not with a president). Republics existed without democracy though, like the old Soviet Union (OK, there were elections, it's just that the Communist Party selected who could run for election).

If you mean that democracy is whatever the majority wants goes, then the name is direct democracy, and I don't know of any country where direct democracy is the system of government as it's not workable for any kind of large society.

In fact, the US is much closer to direct democracy than most western democracies, thanks to the numerous propositions that are voted on in elections by all voters, something many other countries don't have. Of all countries, I think only Switzerland is closer to direct democracy than the US.

@nelkins
The vote counter below the comic strip is not counting thumbs up or down votes; it is counting the star ranking votes for the comic strip.

Liberal in Germany is considered a person who is actually a Libertarian in the US. So it is not entirely correct to call them "left leaning moderate".

However I also have switched to call myself a libertarian since everybody immediately knows the deal.