Why shorten "Democratic"?

July 26, 2005 1:03 PM

"Democratic Party" vs. "Democrat Party" -- why?

This one is for the linguists in the audience, perhaps. Since the campaign last year, GOP bigwigs have been refering to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party" -- I noticed how thoroughly the language had permeating official Republicandom when reading that some no-name RNC spokeswoman was using it.

My question is, what is the point of this seeming pointless switch? Is it just that "Democrat Party" doesn't roll off the tongue very smoothly?

posted by aaronetc to society & culture (17 comments total)

I believe it is to separate the use of the term democratic (small d) from the Democratic Party. So you can praise the democratic process or the encouragement of democratic institutions in the Middle East, for example, without an implicit endorsement of the Democratic Party.

And that is my very diplomatic attempt to explain this linguistic bs. :)
posted by garbo at 1:20 PM on July 26, 2005

Yep, it's all part of controlling the language. "Democracy" and "democratic nations" are good, but "Democrats" are bad, or so goes the thinking.

Frankly, I think it's extremely insulting, as I think it is anytime that somebody's name is modified. I think it's every bit as rude to refer to the President as "pResident Bushit" as it is to call the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party."

And so politics spirals downward.
posted by waldo at 1:29 PM on July 26, 2005

Hopefully not a derail, but the definition of "liberal" has also changed considerably in the US over the past 200 years or so. Originally, a "classical liberal" was one who believed in limited government and taxation, and largely unfettered individual rights. What today one might call a "libertarian."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:31 PM on July 26, 2005

For what it is worth the ReligonLaw listserv for legal academics has spent the worse part of a month embroiled in a fight about this. Marty Lederman suggests that the "Democrat Party" term was pushed partly because it sounds more grating and partly because of McCarthy's original idea to deny the Democrats the positive associations (democracy) that come with "Democratic" as opposed to "Democrat".

Others then objected to the use of "women" as an adjective and wondered if anybody was actually offended by the "Democrat Party" language. The argument then dragged on at tedious length. Look for the emails with the subject line "Attacks on the England Language".

For what it is worth, I didn't notice anybody substantively criticizing Marty Lederman's answer to your question, that the switch is partially because "Democrat" sounded harsher to focus groups and partially because of the positive association between "Democratic" and democracy. But I haven't checked this myself.
posted by willbaude at 1:41 PM on July 26, 2005

"Democrat Party" was a 2004 election linguistics trick cooked up by the Republican Party which was supposedly focus-grouped to sound more negative. If you go back through President Bush's speeches on the campaign trail and his surrogates, you will find "Democrat Party" used when trying to slur the party.

(or what willbaude said)
posted by plemeljr at 1:44 PM on July 26, 2005

It originated with Strom Thurmond, who delighted in insults that were hurtful but too small to do much about. Also, as he became increasingly senile, people felt sorry for him. The right-wingnuts took it up. Notice that Democarts never say it, just as no Republican refers to the Republic Party.

If only someone had started addressing him as Senator Thurmo. . . . He would have flown into a rage, saying "My name is ThurmoND, not Thurmo, sir. It's my name, and I'd appreciate it if you called me as I call myself, and not some insulting diminutive." The answer would be, "Sir, I am a member of the DemocratIC Party, not the Democrat Party. If you'll do me the basic courtesy of calling me by my own name, I'll be more than happy to call you by yours."
posted by KRS at 1:54 PM on July 26, 2005

"Democrat Party" was a 2004 election linguistics trick

This goes back long before 2004, especially in Republican convention speeches. This discusssion has a variety of theories going back to the 60s. One point made is the "democrat party" sounds like "bureaucrat party", so a negative association is created. It's interesting because "Democratic Senator" or "Democrats endorse XYZ" really don't have that same negative ring.
posted by beagle at 1:56 PM on July 26, 2005

Language Log and Geoffrey Nunberg have citations for "Democrat Party" going back to the 1920s, and both quote a 1984 William Safire column that attributed the use of the term to Harold Stassen, the campaign director of Wendell Willkie's race against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

During the 2004 campaign President Bush flip-flopped decisively alternated between using "Democrat Party" in Republican areas and "Democratic Party" in swing areas.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:52 PM on July 26, 2005

What's mildly interesting about this is that while you need separate words for the noun and adjective forms of members of the donkey party ("Democrat" and "Democratic") you only need one for the elephant party ("Republican"). So the Republicans are, in a sense, saying "parties should be named for the people who make it up, thus the Democrat Party, i.e. the Party of Democrats" and the Democrats are saying "parties should be named with adjectives that describe the party's philosophy, thus the Democratic Party, i.e. the Party that is Democratic."
posted by kindall at 4:16 PM on July 26, 2005

Naw, the Democrats are saying that parties should be named with the names they choose for themselves, like any other organization or person.

Republicans aren't saying "Democrat Party" out of any principled belief about how organizations should name themselves. They say it, when they do, because it's less euphonious than "Democratic Party" and they can't resist the cheap shot.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:02 PM on July 26, 2005

I agree that it's more about the harsh sound than invoking bureaucrats or any nasty image of your average "democrat."

Instead, I think the effect comes from the dissonance created by using a noun in the place of an adjective. There is no adjective that ends in -at, so the mind automaticaly assumes there will be an -ic ended right after (aristocratic, automatic, emphatic). That uncomforatble pause goes a long way, methinks.
posted by themadjuggler at 7:08 PM on July 26, 2005

There is no adjective that ends in -at...

Except... umm, "fat" and "flat," among others [I originally wrote -crat].
posted by themadjuggler at 7:10 PM on July 26, 2005

There's some discussion in this thread about what 'sounds' better, etc. — it's worthwhile to note that what we are talking about here is known as "framing."

You can locate good material about this in books by cognitive linguist George Lakoff titled Don't Think of an Elephant! and Moral Politics.

Wordplay, essentially — for example, the phrase "tax relief" implies "relief from taxes," i.e., that taxes are a burden or a negative thing someone needs relief from. With "pro-life," well, one does not want to be "pro-death" or "anti-life." And so on.
posted by WCityMike at 7:37 PM on July 26, 2005

The Democrats' answer, then, should be the use of "The Democracy party."
posted by NickDouglas at 9:33 PM on July 26, 2005

I'm not seriously saying the Republicans (or Democrats) are taking a principled stand on syntax or anything, just that it's an interesting thing to consider and it'll be fun to watch and see whether the meme takes hold. If not, maybe the Repubs can start referring to members of the Democratic Party as "Democratics."
posted by kindall at 9:55 PM on July 26, 2005

"Democratic Party" is (roughly) iambic, whereas "Democrat Party" is not. That lends it the harsher sound that some people are picking up on.
posted by mmcg at 8:15 AM on July 27, 2005

Wow - I sit corrected! Funny how much of the media reports I have read about this have credited this to Rove the Genius, looks like all of our memories are getting shorter.
posted by plemeljr at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2005