The US is a representative democracy. The views of the people are taken into account by means of their votes for a particular party when there are elections, but the government makes the decisions. Switzerland is a country that does have direct democracy, its people holding more power than is possible in other countries. Direct democracy is also called pure democracy where there is direct participation of citizens in democratic decision making.
Indirect or representative democracy is based on the sovereignty of the people. In the US the higher house, the Senate, is composed of individuals recommended by the current President and the existing senators in the house vote him or her in or out. Normally senators would go along with the President's wishes. It is the Senate that makes the law in the US.
The United States is not fully a democratic country because even though there are some things that are decided on based on the people’s votes, there are some that are decided on by the government without having to hear what the majority of the people have to say. The type of democracy that the United States has is direct democracy. The basic thing that can describe if the country is democratic or not is usually based on votes but it usually goes deeper than that.
Democracy has a lot of meanings that sometimes, the true meaning will be hard to understand. America does not have direct democracy because people do not have more power as compared to those who are elected into position whereas, in direct democracy, people have power about almost everything.