The strangest insult in US politics: why do Republicans call it 'the Democrat party'?

[Ponietz]

The Democratic party? Robert F Kennedy Jr’s never heard of it.

On Tuesday, the former presidential candidate issued his latest condemnation of the “Democrat party”, endorsing a bizarre linguistic tradition among haters of the institution. As Donald Trump told a rally in 2018: “I call it the Democrat party. It sounds better rhetorically.” By “better”, of course, he meant “worse”, as he explained the next year: he prefers to say “the ‘Democrat party’ because it doesn’t sound good”.

In removing two letters from “Democratic”, the former president is adopting a jibe that’s been around since at least the 1940s. Opponents of the party long ago decided, for some reason, that this brutal act of syllabic denial would shame their opponents. Democrats don’t seem particularly devastated by the attack, but Republicans and those who love them have stuck with it. We hear it regularly from party luminaries such as JD Vance, Mike Johnson and Nikki Haley; pragmatic independents like RFK Jr; and media voices across the vast spectrum from Fox News to Infowars. Last week, even Tulsi Gabbard, once a Democratic presidential candidate herself, wrote an op-ed proudly describing her departure from the Democrat party and support for Trump.

But even if the misnaming doesn’t exactly leave liberal snowflakes in tears, it does serve a purpose, says Nicole Holliday, acting associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s a marker of affiliation – an indicator of the media a person consumes and the politicians they listen to. She recently heard a friend remark on “Democrat party” policies and asked why they used the term; the friend wasn’t even aware they had done it. “Language is contagious, especially emotionally charged political language,” Holliday says. “Most of the time, we don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to think very hard about every single word that we’re using. We just use it because it’s what other people do.”

That lack of awareness “shows how normalized it’s become”, says Larry Glickman, Stephen and Evalyn Milman professor in American studies at Cornell University, who likens the term to a “schoolyard taunt”. It suggests the party is “outside the mainstream of American politics so much so that we’re not even going to call them by the name they prefer. We refuse to give them that amount of respect.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/05/democrat-party-republicans

Repubes works for me.

[onecaliberal]

1. I call them recons. It's what they are.

[diane in sf]

2. Repugs, they're repugnant.

[ms liberty]

3. In my area the adopted it . The sign in the window says "Democrat Party" Headquarters

It's been that way around here for 40, 50, 60 years? No one in the party blinks twice. I think they see it as tradition. Maybe it is.

[Enter stage left]

4. Respond to them as the "Repugnant Party".

See how they like that.

[Iggo]

13. Just call them weird.

[struggle4progress]

5. Meh. Them Pub Lickers is jest semiliterate

[B.See]

6. I think it is the product of

sheer ignorance, willful or otherwise and spite - i. e. they think it pisses us off. When actually it just sounds IGNORANT.

Democrat is a noun. It describes a member of the party or one who believes in DEMOCRACY.

(as opposed to those who don't, I'd imagine.)

Democratic is an adjective. A word that describes a noun. Such as Democratic Party.

Irony being that jackasses like RFK JUNIOR, who has the audacity to question Kamala's knowledge of the language, subscribe to that kind of lunacy.

[Skittles]

7. because they are STUPID

simple answer

[legallyblondeNYC]

8. "Rat"

It is meant as an insult. The intent is that the word ends with the sound of "rat."

[keithbvadu2]

9. Some years back, it was their fad to use an extra e... democrates.

I asked one what kind of insult it was supposed to be.

He could not explain why he was a follower of such stupidity.

[highplainsdem]

10. Long article in Slate 1/21/23: The Real Origins of the "Democrat Party" Troll

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/democrat-party-republican-insult.html

[UTUSN]

11. K&R, i didn't know the old history, but in our time it came from LUNTZ & GINGRICH

LUNTZ, pollster during GINGRICH-LIMBOsevic hegemony, rode his "focus group" gimmick to the max and came up with a wingnut glossary of rhetorical propaganda words for them to use - "tested" in focus groups for their positive/negative effects, for them to use the positives for wingnut programs and negatives for ours. The main one was to use "Democrat" where Democratic belonged because it sounded "off" to the focus group.

And it IS irritating, no less because it's ungrammatical on the ear, a noun where an adjective belongs. The wingnuts went to town with it because it bothers us, even if the younger wingnuts don't know all this. I like that they don't even know RAYGUN, GINGRICH, LUNTZ!

[Iggo]

12. Because we told them not to.

They’re children.

[malaise]

14. I detest it

By the way M$Greedia hacks often use it and rarely correct ReTHUGs.
Dems should do way more to stop this shit.

[sarisataka]

15. Because it gets a reaction

It is one of the buttons they can push and be sure someone will take offense. Don't give them the satisfaction and it stops soon.

Other option is to (very calmly) state, "It is called the Democratic party. I assume you are capable of using four syllable words or have I overestimated your intelligence?"

[NameAlreadyTaken]

16. They all flunked third grade English.