What was the reasoning behind the republics using Democrat as an adjective?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

I've been told it was planed, discussed and memos were sent about regarding the issue. What I don't understand is what they hoped to gain other than insulting the opposition.

[More Than A Feeling]

1. They undermine grammar the way they undermind science.

I think its part of their plan to try and make us all morons.

[aquart]

2. Emphasis on the code word RAT.

Which also means Jews.

[cally]

9. What??? I didn't know that rat was

code for Jews. I wonder how many others know this. I just assumed it was a general insult not an attack on a specific religious/ethnic group.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

19. I didn't know that either

I wonder what the origins of it are?

[aquart]

29. Here's something on it:

"Rats are not simply animals, they are they frequently imagined as the incarnation of all uncleanness. They are also ‘vermin’ whose destruction most people would favour, and against whose designation as ‘pests’ even the most dedicated animal rights campaigners do not generally protest..

It ought not to be necessary to point out that the political party who perhaps had the greatest recourse to such imagery in modern history was the National Socialist Party in Germany.

Again and again, as well as portraying Jewish people as unclean and microscopically small organisms, National Socialist propagandists portrayed them as small unclean animals or insects. A party manual called upon all good Aryans to squash Jews and members of other ‘inferior races’ like ‘roaches on a dirty wall.’ Goebbels wrote: ‘It is true that the Jew is a human being, but so is a flea a living being - one that is none too pleasant . . . our duty towards both ourselves and our conscience is to render it harmless. It is the same with the Jews.’

The film Der Ewige Jude, which formed part of a propaganda programme designed to justify to the German people the deportations of Jews which were already taking place, included a powerful montage sequence in which Jews were compared to rats. In the words of the commentary, ‘rats … have followed men like parasites from the very beginning … They are cunning, cowardly and fierce, and usually appear in large packs. In the animal world they represent the element of subterranean destruction.’ Having noted that rats spread disease and destruction, the commentary suggested that they occupied a position ‘not dissimilar to the place that Jews have among men’. At this point in the film, footage of rats squirming through sewers is followed first by the image of a rat crawling up through a drain-cover into the street and then by shots of Jewish people crowded together in ghettos."

<http://www.richardwebster.net/print/xofratsandmen.htm>

[aquart]

30. While DUers are busy linking neocons and "Zionists"

Which is code for those-Jews-who-rule-the-whole-world, rightwingers are just as busily linking Democrats and Zionists by use of the "subtle" insult "DemocRAT."

Seems both sides think it's an ugly dirty thing to be associated with Jews.

I get sick when I see it here. Sick. And accepted like it's common knowledge. I wouldn't believe it except I read it here every damn day.

[cally]

32. I think it's more complicated than that

and I would never claim to speak for all DUers

[tularetom]

3. I believe it originated with that Luntz guy

He used to be on TV a lot and I seem to remember hearing that it was to make people think of the "rat" sound everytime they talked about Democrats.

[Lex]

6. He's a slimy POS. Fits right in with Cons.

nt

[HereSince1628]

10. And they quickly discovered that using a noun for an adjective grates on the ears

of people who are fluent in "standard English." Curiously that wrongness wasn't associated with the idiot speaker but was successfully transferred to the Democratic party.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

18. It is painful

My use of republics in the thread title felt ignorant when I wrote it that way. Which is exactly how I think it makes them sound when they use misuse Democrat.

[rhiannon55]

15. Let's make people think of the "lick" sound

I favor Re-PUBE-LICK, myself.;)

[Poiuyt]

20. I heard that Luntz's focus groups thought that "Democratic" sounded too good

It left the people with a good feeling. They are doing more than just to annoy us, it's to demean us in the eyes of the public.

[papau]

33. That is also what I heard n/t

n/t

[Canuckistanian]

31. And remember that TV campaign commercial?

I think it was in 2002. There were graphics of words floating around and one of them was "Democrats".

And the word floated towards the 'camera', it stopped on the "rats" part.

[originalpckelly]

4. It's an insult made popular by that asshole Joe McCarthy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_party

It has a long and storied history, but he's one of the idiots who started using it frequently.

[MrSlayer]

5. It's a way to dehumanize the party.

They won't even dignify or recognize us by calling the party by it's proper name. It's real bush league, high school, baby nonsense. But that's the game they play.

[Mandate My Ass]

7. They love insulting the opposition

They did it when they were the majority in addition to shutting Dems completely out of the loop. Now they will act badly, speak obnoxiously and blame the opposition for the very problems they created.

[Buzz Clik]

8. Whatever the reason, it's become a child's game of "got you last"

They say it to piss off anyone who has decided to be sensitive about it. It's asinine, but there it is.

[Eurobabe]

11. Jes plain ignorance

Nuthin else.

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. Either willful ignorance or abject stupidity. n/t

[whistle]

13. Turn democracy into a bad word like they have attempted to do

...with liberal.

Democrat = Liberal = Socialist = Leftist = Atheist = Marxist/Maoist/Stalinist/Leninist etc.

They are also not creative enough to come up with something as decriptive as "reTHUGlican"

[driver8]

14. Because they are immature, insecure, and just plain idiots.

This is something a kid in grade school would do if he was running for class president.

These people are such shallow little weasels with no regard for anyone else...this is so stupid.

[Deep13]

16. "Democratic" implies we are the party of democracy.

They don't want to concede that.

[LiberalEsto]

17. To paraphrase Lewis Carroll

They only do it to annoy
because they know it teases

[mikeytherat]

21. 10-year-olds-on-the-playground petty dickishness?

mikey_the_rat

[pepperbear]

22. I always got the impression that it was.....

like saying DEMOKRAT. It sounds like proletariat..more of a communist inference.

"He/she is a member of the DEMOKRAT party" sounds European, like he/she is a member of some socialist / leftist group.

I am convinced that was the objective.

[Ignacio Upton]

23. I think because they don't want our party associated with the word "democratic"

Plus, "Democrat Party" bring of connotations of big government bureaucrats (Democrat rhymes with bureaucrat! Those commie bastards!)

The only way to stop them from casually doing this is to call them out on it each time they spout "Democrat Party!" They usually do it because it's subtle.

[LSparkle]

24. I think it was the creation of Frank Luntz/Newt Gingrich -- INTENTIONAL

It's code to show disrespect to Dems. I think every time a Thug uses it in public (e.g., SOTU, Congressional floor speech), the Democratic members ought to start chanting "DemocratIC, DemocratIC, DemocratIC" -- DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS ANYMORE!

[Ignacio Upton]

25. It goes back further

The Wikipedia article has quotes from Senator Robert Taft (the famous anti-New Deal and isolationist Senator) and Joe McCarthy. Sadly, Eisenhower used the phrase a few times, despite having the reputation of being a bipartisan figure (he was even courted by both parties to run in 1952.)

[applegrove]

26. The word looses quality when used that way. Don't let the GOP steal

more words from us. They already practically destroyed the word "Liberal". We have the fight for everything these days. How would the GOP feel if they were call Republic Party?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

27. Max Baucus referenced the "republic committee" today on the Senate floor

I didn't see it myself, but here's a link to the DU thread about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x39221

[tom_paine]

28. Semantically equivalent to the slur "Jew Lawyer"

Like Reagan's 1980 campaign kickoff celebrating the murder of 3 Liberal Civil Rights Workers in Philadelphia, MS in 1964, it is a slur which registers a very positive Q rating and among the sturmtruppen who form the backbone of Bushevik support.

You see, the modern Republic Party is built almost solely on lies and propaganda these days. They are about building gestalts of unreality. They are also about building "coded" gestlats which are designed to bring as many evil and thoughless sturmtruppen to them as possible.

I believe that is this deeper layer that is the ultimate goal of the term. They are "reaching out" to the New Nazis, who by now are almost entirely Busheviks. Many of them harbor dreams of being able to murder liberals in a consequence-free environment. Coincidentally, Halliburton is building or has finihed Concentration Camps for 500,000.

I don't think all of the Old Nazis are on board yet, though.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. Yes.

Illiteracy.