tell us why you believe it is or is not.
No.
Why do I "believe" that a non democracy is not a democracy? Because the answer comes from facts, and the simple fact is that we do not live in a "democracy."
We live in a Constitutional Federal Republic.
Since you're not capitalizing 'democracy' or qualifying it in any way, you're wrong. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Our representitives and senators are definitely elected democratically, so at best you're only partially right.