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Ollie Parks's avatar

In America, many Democrats find the term "Democrat Party" highly provocative. That's because Republicans use it disparagingly against Democrats. It is meant to belittle and insult us and our party.

You see, we belong to the "Democratic Party," not the "Democrat Party."

Here's an excerpt from a 2019 piece about the phenomenon:

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You May Have Heard Republicans Use The Term 'Democrat Party'

Jeremy Hobson

7 February 2019

WBUR Here and Now

President Trump referred to a "Democrat agenda" in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. He's said before that he prefers the term "Democrat Party" to Democratic Party, its official name.

But it's not grammatically correct — "Democrat" is a noun, "democratic" is an adjective — and it's also seen as a slight to Democrats.

NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki, author of the book "The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism," says while the term doesn't have a specific date of origin, Republicans have used it as far back as the 1950s.

"[Sen. Joseph] McCarthy himself was known to use it. Other prominent Republicans of the period used it as well," Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "The explanations that you heard back then were that they thought using the full, official name 'Democratic' suggested that they were kind of granting the premise that the Democrats were the party of the people. And then if you take that '-ic' suffix off of that, it changes the suggested meaning."

As Washington, D.C., enters a new period of divided government, something as small as dropping two letters off a party's official name could only serve to deepen partisan divisions, Kornacki says.

"Some Democrats kind of feel like it just sounds inelegant, it sounds rough, it sounds harsh, whatever word you want to put on it. So I think they're pushing back," he says. "They also just take it as disrespect — as a needless disrespect — as, 'Hey, this is the official name of our party. Call us by our name.' So I doubt they're going to turn around and embrace it too much."

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/02/07/why-republicans-say-democrat-party

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In sum, "Democratic Party" and "Democrat Party" are not synonyms. The latter has negative connotations that are going to rile some Americans who are Democrats. To avoid causing unintended offense, the better practice is to refer only to the "Democratic Party" and leave "Democrat Party" to the likes of former president Trump, former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and the blonde baboon who goes by the name of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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RJNZ's avatar

Spot on, Helen, as usual. This Yank agrees and thanks you.

May the sane argument/calculation that’s been made by Ezra Klein and others, be heeded by those who can persuade Biden to step down now, as a hero.

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