Technically we're a constitutional republic with a representative democracy. The state "mobs" send Senators to Washington (repeal the 17th Amendment, effective yesterday), the "mob" in the congressional districts sends people to Congress. Hardly a pure democracy but we're actually more democratic than the Founders intended. The original intent was to have Congress be the "house of the people" and the Senate be the "house of the states." Now both are houses of the people (errr, should be, but that's hardly true).
Wild ass guess but I'd say due to Q's return