Spoon,
We must not hear or read the same news. Maybe you watch FOX, which you may know, went to the SCOTUS to obtain a decision that it does not have to tell its audience the truth. It is infotainment and made up of lies and whatever spin suits them. FOX also paid $867 million to settle a lawsuit with Dominion because they knowingly lied about the role of the voting machines in the 2020 election.
Turns out it's slightly more complex than just Constitutional Republic.
The definitions have drifted over time. Republic comes from ‘res publica’- public good - meaning a state governed in the interests of the general public, not simply directed at the whim and weal of a select few for their own interests. Democracy is of Greek origin called 'Ellenika Demokratia."
But republic has morphed into meaning today ‘a country without a monarchy’. More specifically, it means that the apparatus of state is public property rather than the private property of a monarch. Any organization of government in which the government isn't legally owned by a person is a republic. Republic is form of government where a country is governed by people (mostly through representatives) from which the power is formally derived. In contrast with monarchy where the country is "owned" by monarch from which all political power is formally derived, or theocracy where it is from god/clergy, and other forms.
Democracy is a system of government where the leaders/officials are chosen by election. (minimalistic definition). It is contrasted by authoritarian/totalitarian regimes where the leaders are not selected by election (or the election process is not respected). They are not exclusive and are often combined (US is both), republic doesn't have to be democratic (PRC, DPRK) and democracy doesn't have to be republic (UK).
Republic and democracy are different kinds of things. They are not mutually exclusive either. "Democracy" is a little more debated as a term, but generally it's defined as a system of government in which popular elections determine the organization of the government. Governments like the United States and most of the Western world are referred to by political scientists as "liberal democracies", which are representative democracies governed by the ideological tenets of liberalism (pluralism and freedom of expression and commerce). There are other forms of democracy such as council democracy and direct democracy.
There's a popular narrative that originated in the United States that "It's not a democracy, it's a republic", but that's because those who say it think that it means being a Republican is more legitimate than being a Democrat (yes, it's that stupid). The US is both a republic (the government is public property) and a liberal democracy (it's a representative democracy based on liberal ideals).
Uh, no thanks; I'll decide whether to respond or not.