Do Republicans intentionally call Democrats: "DEMOCRAT?"

[cboy4]

Poll question: Do Republicans intentionally call Democrats: "DEMOCRAT?"

I just heard it again on TV concerning California's budget crisis.

"...hey, blame the "Democrat" members, blah blah, for holding this up." :eyes:

Come on, it's getting ridiculous and sooooo obvious, in my opinion.

But what do you expect a low class Republic?


So, what do you think?

**When you vote, vote whether you honestly believe it's being done
intentionally or whether it's a coincidence.

I don't want to influence anyone.

[camera obscura]

1. They do. Interestingly William F Buckley chided his fellow Repubs for doing this

“I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity.

But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807ta_talk_hertzberg

[Greyhound]

22. Buckley has always served to remind me that even the best educated, extraordinarily intelligent,

people can still be wrong almost all the time.

But, I still would have loved to have dinner with him.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

2. I voted other

I think Republicans do it on purpose, but I also think it can be a regional thing. I've heard people say "Democrat" party in NJ, and they weren't Republicans.

[TheBigotBasher]

8. The BBC use both Democrat and Democratic.

I pretty much do. A Democrat Senator, the Democratic Congress. Democrats support this proposal.

I see nothing wrong in being called a Democrat, it means you are a supporter of Democracy, the opposite of which is totalitarianism (as was witnessed over the last 8 years).

[cboy4]

15. A "Democrat" Senator is passable (although I still don't like it),

however when I hear "Democrat Party" ... it's like nails on the chalkboard for me.

[ellenfl]

28. me too. eom

[Bonn1997]

40. Why? What's the difference?

[cboy4]

44. I'm responding to the person in Post 8

I personally don't care for it and personally don't see a big difference.

But my point is, if someone has it in their brain that they must leave off the "ic" in Democratic, I'd rather hear "Democrat Congress" than "Democrat Party."

[AndyA]

3. I think most of the time, it's intentional.

The rest of the time, it's done out of ignorance.

Hatred and ignorance: What better defines the Republican Party and its members? :shrug:

[bdamomma]

11. repigs just being stupid and not giving people the respect they should receive.

[ellenfl]

4. absolutely they do. this has been documented and is a slur

by republicans. they're nothing if not disciplined . . . like lemmings. they all got the memo and ALL do it. sometimes i wish dems would call them 'republics' but that's not who we are. at least we don't take everyone over the cliff with us when we screw up.

ellen fl

[BattyDem]

19. I'd prefer that the Dems start calling them out on it

Do it in a way that makes the GOP look childish, simple-minded or both. Say something like, "How can the Republicans claim to know what's best for this country when they don't even know the name of the other party?" or "The fact that our colleagues across the aisle continue to childishly refer to us as the 'Democrat' party proves they don't have the maturity to deal with the complex issues this country is facing."

:-)

[ellenfl]

27. i could not agree with you more. i have actually heard tweety,

of all people, mention it. he just laughs it off though.

ellen fl

[HillWilliam]

36. Oh, I absolutely do

I look over the tops of my Ben Franklin glasses, interrupt them with, "The what party?" and just beg them to repeat themselves with a cold stare. Ben Franklins are just made to throw cold, pedantic stares over top of :) If they walk into the wall again, I interrupt them again with "The what party?" until either they get it or it's apparent they're going to be stubborn. If they choose the latter path, I'll go ahead and interrupt no less coldly or pedantically with "... as opposed to the Republic party, I supppooooooose??" as if I were ridding my mouth of a vile taste.

Yeah, I'll pick a fight. Ain't skeert.

I've had more than enough of their petty shit and I'm not backing down one inch. You give those bastids a scant millimeter and they'll run ten miles. My dogs are better behaved.

[TheBigotBasher]

55. Instead of calling the Republic - just keep reeferring to them as the far right

That is what they are. There is no Political Party anywhere else in the World as extreme right as they are; exceot for recognised fascist parties. And the views of the far right GOP are not much different to those of the Klan; compare Stormfront and the Freepers?

[HillWilliam]

56. That too

:evilgrin: I often refer to them as "the extreme right". "Far" isn't far enough and "extreme" really gets their goat. Most folks say "the religious right". I say "the fundamentalist extremists" or "the Christian extremists" in speech. That makes their heads explode.

Like I said, I ain't skeert. They've been itching for it and I hand it to them with a bigole "come on" attached. I've actually put it out (out loud!) in the office after taking shit for being (gasp!) "a librul" that there was nothing left in the republic party but neonazis, Klan, Ayn Rand nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnuts, gun nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnuts, religious nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnuts, and just nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnuts in general, delivered with disdain and a slow southern drawl, topped off with "so which ones are y'all?". (Before anyone gets riled, I'm a gun owner, and everyone where I work knows I have a carry permit, and I do. They knew what I meant by the remark... the Deliverance kind of gun nut sitting up in the woods with 200 guns and several thousand rounds "cuz he dawnt trussa gubmint" kind of nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnut.)

I used to be nice. I used to be sweet. Then I got a bellyful of their shit over the last 20 or so years. I have little patience for willful stupidity and none for willful stupidity that wants to make a point of itself across my goodwill.

[truebrit71]

5. Yes. The rethugtards do it SPECIFICALLY to be annoying and disrespectful...

...FUCK THEM ALL!!!!

[BattyDem]

6. They can't handle words with more than three syllables

:P

[cboy4]

7. I wonder what the history is behind this?

I mean, was everyone brainstorming in a room, and a Republic said, "I know what will make them mad! Let's start calling it the Democrat Party?" :wtf:

They have a lot of time on their hands.

[Kalyke]

32. Here you go:

The history of “Democrat Party” is hard to pin down with any precision, though etymologists have traced its use to as far back as the Harding Administration. According to William Safire, it got a boost in 1940 from Harold Stassen, the Republican Convention keynoter that year, who used it to signify disapproval of such less than fully democratic Democratic machine bosses as Frank Hague of Jersey City and Tom Pendergast of Kansas City. Senator Joseph McCarthy made it a regular part of his arsenal of insults, which served to dampen its popularity for a while. There was another spike in 1976, when grumpy, growly Bob Dole denounced “Democrat wars” (those were the days!) in his Vice-Presidential debate with Walter Mondale. Growth has been steady for the last couple of decades, and today we find ourselves in a golden age of anti-“ic”-ism.

In the conservative media, the phenomenon feeds more voraciously the closer you get to the mucky, sludgy bottom. “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807ta_talk_hertzberg

[cboy4]

46. Oh wow .. fascinating.

Live and learn. :D

[Arugula Latte]

9. Of course. nt

[ZombieHorde]

10. I really like your pre-poll text. nt

[cboy4]

25. Thanks ZombieHorde

:)

[baldguy]

12. It's intentional.

The 'pukes hide behind the supposed stupidity of their constituents - who more often than not live up to those expectations.

[devilgrrl]

13. Of course they do. Just like Dick Armey called Barney Frank 'Barney Fag' intentionally.

The passive-aggressive little bitches that they are.

[Cerridwen]

14. Since before mccarthy. It is intentional and intended as an insult.

[cboy4]

24. Have they seriously been calling us Democrat for

that long?! -- dating back before McCarthyism? :wow:

I thought it's only been a relatively new slur.

Wow. Interesting.

[ellenfl]

30. i thought newt the hoot started it. eom

[cboy4]

31. Yea, it seems a more recent term, but I'm no historian

so I don't know for sure.

[Cerridwen]

38. Naw, just carrying on another long tradition of revising the

language to suit their needs.

It's the same type of effort they put into making ronnie reagan a saint and painting FDR as a failure.

Those who control the names and definitions and the methods to disseminate them, control our "reality," a la Orwell.

[Cerridwen]

34. If Wiki is accurate, first used in 1890 in Britain.

"Democrat Party" has been used from time to time by opponents of the Democratic Party and sometimes by others. The earliest known use of the term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was by a London stock-market analyst, who wrote in 1890, "Whether a little farmer from South Carolina named Tillman is going to rule the Democrat Party in America – yet it is this, and not output, on which the proximate value of silver depends."<3> The term was used by Herbert Hoover in 1932, and in the late 1930s by Republicans who used it to criticize Democratic big city machines run by powerful political bosses in what they considered undemocratic fashion. Republican leader Harold Stassen said in 1940, "I emphasized that the party controlled in large measure at that time by Hague in New Jersey, Pendergast in Missouri and Kelly-Nash in Chicago should not be called a 'Democratic Party.' It should be called the 'Democrat Party.'"<2>Democrat as an adjective was still sometimes used by some twentieth-century Republicans as a campaign tool but was used with particular virulence by the late senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican who sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic.

link to Wiki entry

[cboy4]

41. Oh wow ... fascinating .. thanks!

What the hell did any of us do before Wiki? lol

All I know is I wish it had been around when I was in high school and college.

HA!

[Cerridwen]

43. Before Wiki?

*sigh* I am that old. I used to use a hard-bound, printed Encyclopaedia with annual updates. Microfiche and books. I still do, to some extent.

They just don't link very well. :D



edit for spelling.

[cboy4]

45. I have nightmares of late night sessions at the university

library making copies out of the encyclopedia and other reference books.

All I remember is making a copy, checking to see how it turned out, only to notice I'd clipped off a section closest to the binding and have to start over again. x(

I could probably buy a Mercedes with the money I spent on Xeroxing! :crazy:

[Cerridwen]

47. Journal articles - my nightmares were journal articles.

The trees and the money I went through.

Then, irony of ironies, what did I receive as an award for academic scholarship and my contributions to my school? A one year subscription to one of those very journals. LOL

Oof.

:rofl:

[cboy4]

49. HA! Considering all of the trees you went through, instead of

giving you a subscription, they should have named a forest of your choice after you. :rofl:

[NavyDavy]

16. they know what they are doing because if you go to some of the

riechwing sites they sometimes bold or capitalize the "rat" part, ie DemocRAT

[backscatter712]

17. It's intentional, and very disrespectful.

They do it to marginalize us, to make our entire party and progressive philosophy into a grammatical error, in a way.

It's a deliberate insult, and should be called out as such.

[monmouth]

18. The intention of course being DemocRAT...n/t

[cboy4]

20. I can see DUers are having a tough time deciding,,, the

voting is neck and neck. :rofl:

[kestrel91316]

21. It's deliberately disrespectful to refuse to call someone or something

by its actual name.

Democrats call their party THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, therefore that is its name and what others should also call it.

[Ikonoklast]

23. Republics do it intentionally.

I don't mind. It only calls attention to how petty, little, and small-minded they are.


But they are members of a petty, little, and small-minded political party that is quickly talking themselves out of existence, so let them keep talking.

[catzies]

26. OTHER - intentional, but they do it to inflame their base, who needs outrage like oxygen

[Romulox]

29. It's childish to name-call, and it's childish to react to it. nt

[cboy4]

48. There's a difference between name-calling such as,

"you're a poo-poo head" and a slur.

Therefore, depending on the circumstance(s), I absolutely don't have a problem reacting to it.

And arbitrarily issuing a comment that it's "childish" to react to name-calling is silly.

If someone call a black person a N_ _ _ _ _ or a gay person a F _ _ _ _ _ , that's name-calling.

Are you going to say it's childish to react to those slurs?

[Romulox]

54. Sorry, but "Democrat" is not a slur. nt

[cboy4]

60. You need to look up the definition of "slur" because you're not

at the top of your game when it comes to vocabulary.

SLUR:

1. a: an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slur

"Democrat Party" is insulting and disparaging, as you can deduce from the poll results.

I rest my case.

[Romulox]

61. You might look up the defintion of "quotation"

I said that "Democrat" is not a slur. You are talking about "Democrat Party".

[RebelOne]

33. I think they are too dumb to know the difference. n/t

[Historic NY]

35. They don't like to acknowledge there are millions of us.

[stuntcat]

37. they're too dense to realize how juvenile and petty they sound

Apparently a lot of my fellow 'Murkins are too. This is why I've mostly given up on our whole species :evilgrin:

[demokatgurrl]

39. Surely you have inadvertently left out your sarcasm smilie?

because they have been doing this, DELIBERATELY, for years. It started in the Gingrich era. All we can do is refuse to accept the moniker. Some Democrats -and I am referring to party officials, campaigns, candidates, even politicians- are too stupid to do so.
For example, I got a bumper sticker from some DemocratIC organization last year that said "Vote Democrat". I would not put that on my car. When I found one that said "vote DemocratIC", I put that one on.
It's the litle things.

[cboy4]

53. Why would I have put a sarcasm smilie? I don't know whether

they positively say it any more than you do.

At least I'm pretty sure.

You may know when it started, but I mean, has any Republican come out and admitted they say the word intentionally and whether they were instructed/encouraged to say it?

I don't think you do.

[rurallib]

42. What I love is when NPR does - like this morning.

You remember NPR? "Our" media. With friends like that, who needs enemies.
O, BTW, of course repugs do it on purpose. Their whole schtick is to act like a spoiled 6th grader until somebody hollers at them. Then they cry and scream follow.

[bobbolink]

50. Yes, it's irritating... but really, is this the BIGGEST issue we have to concentrate on?

Yanno, if people would use just a tenth of this energy to work for low-income housing, we wouldn't have so many homeless people!

Just for one example...

But, the priority is yours...

[Name removed]

52. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cboy4]

51. Oh, and by the way, a hearty FUCK YOU to

Conservative Underground (wow, such an original title...NOT), and all of the losers over there, since I know they'll be posting this thread in their Obsession With DU Circle Jerk thread. :eyes:

Like a bunch of third graders, they'll be jumping up and down, telling each other, "...SEE, they don't like being called the Democrat Party...keep doing it!" Megga Dittos Ping blah blah, or however they communicate.

What a bunch of sad losers, literally. It must suck not controlling government any more. lol

[Hubert Flottz]

57. What do you expect from Freepers and Morans?

Good Grammar Or Good Taste? ***** FORGETABOUTIT!

Remember that stammering George was the best mouthpiece they had to offer for the past 8 years.

"Put food on your family" "Make the pie higher" What could you expect from such idiots, but still more stupidity?

[PBS Poll-435]

58. I think it is pretty clear...

:hug:

[The Gunslinger]

59. No doubt it is done on purpose

[Catherine Vincent]

62. It's intentional.

And they're lazy mofo's.

[Ilsa]

63. Well, they ARE pretty goddam stupid, you know. But it is intentional. nt