In political science, the term polyarchy (poly "many", arkhe "rule") was used by Robert A. Dahl to describe a form of government in which power is invested in multiple people. It takes the form of neither a dictatorship nor a democracy. This form of government was first implemented in the United States and France and gradually adopted by other countries. Polyarchy is different from democracy, according to Dahl, because the fundamental democratic principle is "the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals" with unimpaired opportunities. A polyarchy is a form of government that has certain procedures that are necessary conditions for following the democratic principle.
So yeah, you are right. A representative "democracy" is not a democracy. It's a monarchy with more than one ruler.
A gummy bear is as much a bear as representative democracy is a democracy.
I didn't know that, because i was taught in school that a representative "democracy" is a form of democracy. And the name makes it sound like one. But it isn't. It's not even supposed to be in theory. I am sure 99% of people living in a representative "democracy" don't know this.
I hereby encourage everyone to abandon the word representative "democracy" in favor of polyarchy or maybe oligarchy. This makes it much clearer what we are talking about.
Also i doubt the authors of this article know this, because they imply that representative "democracy" is desirable, but it is obviously undesirable.
