The US is not without its flaws, but we are a democracy.
We literally had a bunch of unelected people in robes declare the president, just over 2 decades ago.
Our representatives in federal, state, and local governments are democratically elected and ideally should represent the majority of the population.
ideally should is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence- They don’t. Local governments are often dominated by landlord interests, as well as homeowners- that’s often accomplished by systematically disenfranchising renters.
Again, the unelected people in robes declared that money is speech, not only swaying elections but allowing influence to be bought directly. How is that a democracy?
You seem to be conflating the concept of ‘democracy’ with the freedom to spend money however it may hurt someone else structurally. That’s pretty authoritarian if you’re someone without money.