Let’s clear the air here. It’s called the DEMOCRATIC Party.
We all learn the names of the two major political parties in school, right after we learn to read and hopefully before we start working through our first term paper. America, since the death of the Whigs and with the exception to Teddy Roosevelt, has been home to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Within the past few years republicans have all been trained to use a third grade grammatical slur by failing to pronounce the name of our party correctly. To them, it’s now the “Democrat” party. In describing everything from policies to positions, it’s the noun being used instead of the adjective. Obviously this is meant to somehow divest the Democratic party of it’s roots in democracy, to turn an idealistic idea of what it means to celebrate the democratic principals we Democrats, as Americans, celebrate and promote. But you’d be surprised that today’s republicans were not the first to misuse the English language to deride the blue side of the aisle.
Joe McCarthy and his thugs also called the party the “Democrat” party. They wanted to paint their victims as out of step with America, to declare that nobody who came before them could have anything to do with the ideas of democracy. However, like McCarthy, use of this slur ended as he did. But not entirely. Newt Gingrich revived the use in the 80s, in his goal to undermine democratic norms in America and further political partisanship.
So there’s a long history of using this slur against the Democratic Party, and it’s no small wonder that in a world where Mitch “the turtle” McConnell steals a supreme court seat, where republicans shepherd an attempted rapist to another seat, and the smallest and most corrupt president in American history uses most of his daily hours to create names for people he doesn’t like, that republicans would begin another long drawn out campaign to deny the strength of the other party. After all, it’s not as if they have any idea or issue to bring before the American people, for the good of all Americans, any idea that has popular support.
No, we’d expect them to behave as they are, as children bereft of ideas as they are of morals, common sense or shame.
But it’s gotten to the point where I hear the term “Democrat” party being used by reporters from real news channels. And call it my pet peeve, but it’s time to begin correcting anyone who misuses our language to attempt to diminish or degrade the only political party in America that still stands up for the values of democracy.
So to be clear, it’s the Democratic Senator or Representative, the Democratic bill, proposal, plan or idea. It’s the Democratic side of the aisle. It’s a Democratic win, and a Democratic House. Nancy Pelosi is a Democratic leader. AOC is a Democratic congresswomen. So let’s make sure to call it out whenever you hear some hyper-inflated senator clutching at pearls railing in support of some alternative facts.
It’s the Democratic Party. You know, the one that just posted a tsunami of wins in the last election, and is slated to do so again in the next.