# Democrat Party vs Democratic Party? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 18, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397 "2016-03-18T15:30:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/41 "2016-03-18T21:32:02Z")
> [@TheSeaOtter](#): > > To the extent that there’s an answer to the question, it’s the one RealityChuck gave - research showed that ‘Democratic Party’ had positive associations with the people, but that ‘Democrat Party’ had negative ones. Also, it’s easier to snarl - fewer syllables, nice hard ‘t’ sound at the end. Influential jerks started using it for those reasons, and before you know it it’s a staple of jerks everywhere. > > It’s puerile and silly, but when has that ever stopped people who wanted to be jerks? > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Well nothing against RealityChuck or you - I’m sure you’re a couple of the finest posters on this board - but that kind of factual assertion is virtually worthless without a cite. > > If you look at the Wiki link in my earlier post you’ll see some speculation by various commentators. None of them mention any actual research being done on this, which increases my skepticism. > **[THE “IC” FACTOR](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/07/the-ic-factor)** > > Hendrik Hertzberg on what the President calls his opposition party. excepted below, my bolding: > [@](#): > > The job of politicians, however, is different, and among those of the Republican persuasion “Democrat Party” is now nearly universal. This is partly the work of Newt Gingrich, the nominal author of the notorious 1990 memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” and his Contract with America pollster, Frank Luntz, the Johnny Appleseed of such linguistic innovations as “death tax” for estate tax and “personal accounts” for Social Security privatization. **Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001** , has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day. He added that he recently finished writing a book—it’s entitled “Words That Work”—and has been diligently going through the galley proofs taking out the hundreds of “ic”s that his copy editor, one of those partisan Dems, had stuck in. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/42 "2016-03-19T00:11:24Z")
I can live with either. I understand why some of my fellow Democrats object but to me its just not an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/43 "2016-03-19T00:27:37Z")
It’s a silly thing to get all spun up over. Right here on this board is the first time I have ever heard someone who supports the Democratic party object to being referred to as a Democrat. I have been a registered Democrat for 16 years, and haven’t ever had the slightest notion that Democrats object to being called Democrats until a few months ago when someone claimed to be offended by it on the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/44 "2016-03-19T00:33:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Market research. > > Seriously. The Republican pollsters discovered people liked the word “Democratic,” because it reminded them of democracy. But “Democrat” gets a more negative reaction, probably because it’s close to “bureaucrat.”\* Republicans were advised to use “Democrat Party” to make the connection. If this is the case, it’s just another example of why the Republicans regularly beat the Democrats at these little mind games. Look at conservative and liberal. They used to just be two neutral terms. But liberals sat back and allowed the word liberal to be redefined as a insult. Now the Democrats are sitting back and allowing the Republicans to turn the word Democrat into an insult. Instead of defending their name and saying that Democrat Party is a perfectly fine term and they’re proud to be called the Democrat Party, they’re letting the Republicans set the narrative. They’re agreeing that Democrat Party is an insult and their tepid response is to ask that they be called the Democratic Party instead. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/45 "2016-03-19T00:34:33Z")
ETAL @ **Mosier**. I don’t know of any D who objects to being called a Democrat. It’s being called a supporter of the Democrat party that rankles (mildly in my case). As so many have said above, it’s simply the idjits mispronouncing our group’s name in childish schoolboy fashion in hopes of getting a schoolboy rise out of us. On one hand we’re above all this. On the other hand, we’ve seen what a dozenish years of letting the Rs define the terms of debate lead to: “Fair and balanced” news media that isn’t; patriots that aren’t; rights that are wrong; facts that are anything but, and all the rest. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/46 "2016-03-19T00:42:55Z")
You can let it go and look weak or you can call them on it and look petty. I’ll look petty, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/47 "2016-03-19T01:39:15Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > It’s a silly thing to get all spun up over. Right here on this board is the first time I have ever heard someone who supports the Democratic party object to being referred to as a Democrat. I have been a registered Democrat for 16 years, and haven’t ever had the slightest notion that Democrats object to being called Democrats until a few months ago when someone claimed to be offended by it on the Dope. Nobody is objecting to being called a Democrat. We object to the Party being called the Democrat Party. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/48 "2016-03-19T02:07:21Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > It’s a silly thing to get all spun up over. Doesn’t seem to be much of that here. Most hostile reaction seems to be a rolling of the eyes and lack of respect for the speaker. Certain definitions of “all spun up”, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/49 "2016-03-19T02:29:29Z")
I’ve always figured they should be cut some slack - three syllable words are probably challenge enough for 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/50 "2016-03-19T03:04:28Z")
I’m a Democrat who could not give less of a shit over the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/51 "2016-03-19T04:29:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > {…} Now the Democrats {…} Now? The first time I heard “There’s nothing democratic about the Democrat party” was in the 70’s! CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/52 "2016-03-19T12:00:54Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > There’s a difference. Democrat is a noun, as in “He’s a Democrat. She’s a Democrat. Those are the Democrats over there.” Democratic is an adjective, as in “Democratic party. Democratic voters. Democratic primary.” > [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > That begs the question of then why aren’t Republicans called “Republics”? “He’s a Republic. She’s a Republic. Those are the Republics over there.”? Even in the insouciantly WRONG sense in which you are deploying “begs the question,” it does nothing of the sort. As was explained quite adequately in post 15, > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > The word “Republican” functions as both noun and adjective. Republicans are members of the Republican Party. It seems to me that it would be easy to make the honest mistake of saying that Democrats are members of the Democrat Party. (I disagree, of course, with the assertion that it is an honest mistake that can be made more than once by a given individual, or even once by an individual who is feeling called upon to hold forth on the matter of political parties and the policies they espouse.) ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/53 "2016-03-19T12:24:31Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > … why aren’t Republicans called “Republics”? “He’s a Republic. She’s a Republic. Those are the Republics over there.”? Because a republic is country, such as ours, with a republican form of government. republic, democracy republican, democratic Republican, Democratic It’s not that hard, really. You can get it. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/54 "2016-03-19T12:37:16Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > (I disagree, of course, with the assertion that it is an honest mistake that can be made more than once by a given individual, or even once by an individual who is feeling called upon to hold forth on the matter of political parties and the policies they espouse.) Missed the edit window: Please mentally strike “assertion,” above, and replace with “proposition.” Thank you. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/55 "2016-03-19T13:25:21Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Like, it’s not the Democratic Party-- that would mean those people can make some claim to a great thing like democracy. No, it’s the Democrat Party-- nothing to do with democracy there, people. This has been the explicit reason since as far back as 1940: > **[Democrat Party (epithet)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet))** > > Democrat Party is an epithet and pejorative for the Democratic Party of the United States, often used in a disparaging fashion by the party's opponents. While use of the term started out as non-hostile, it has grown in its negative use since the 1940s, in particular by members of the Republican Party—in party platforms, partisan speeches, and press releases—as well as by conservative commentators and third party politicians. > United Press International reported in August 1984 that the term Demo... > [@](#): > > William Safire studied the partisan use of “Democrat Party” as epithet since the 1940 presidential campaign of Republican Wendell Willkie. Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, Willkie’s campaign manager, explained to Safire his motivation for using the term: Stassen said that because the Democratic Party was at that time partly controlled by undemocratic city bosses—“by Hague in New Jersey, Pendergast in Missouri and Kelly-Nash in Chicago, [it] should not be called a ‘Democratic Party.’ It should be called the ‘Democrat Party.’”[16] ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/56 "2016-03-19T13:56:16Z")
> [@j666](#): > > It’s not that hard, really. You can get it. Although I cannot Republican, Democrat ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/57 "2016-03-19T19:40:54Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > A bunch of you whiners/jerks should be embarrassed…and crap like this is why we can’t have nice stuff around here. For the last time, this is not the Pit. Further personal insults in this thread directed at other posters will lead to warnings. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/58 "2016-03-19T20:40:05Z")
It’s always interesting to compare the rhetoric of some hereabouts towards Republicans, and the tender-hearted respect for their feelings expected in return. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/59 "2016-03-19T20:49:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It’s always interesting to compare the rhetoric of some hereabouts towards Republicans, and the tender-hearted respect for their feelings expected in return. > > Regards, > Shodan I promise that will never support calling the Republican Party, the Republic Party. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397/60 "2016-03-19T21:11:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It’s always interesting to compare the rhetoric of some hereabouts towards Republicans, and the tender-hearted respect for their feelings expected in return. > > Regards, > Shodan I am a lifelong liberal Democrat (if it hasn’t been lost or destroyed, somewhere out there is footage of me ranting to a reporter at a rally about McGovern’s good qualities when I was a 14-year-old, circa 1973) and I could care less if you want to refer to the Democrat Party. Please, go right ahead. It’s not exactly a key issue like immigration or tax reform - let’s do each other the courtesy of acknowledging that. Sure, I get that it is _meant_ to be an insult. But I can’t be bothered to care. Personally I think we Dems should appropriate the term for ourselves and suck all the disparagement out of it. Democrat Party. Democrat Party. DEMOCRAT PARTY! Hey, I said it repeatedly and nothing bad happened. Meanwhile, if various people want to signal their contempt for Democrats by using that term, they should go right ahead and I honestly don’t care. It’s useful shorthand, just like “Drumpf” is. If you say Democrat Party and I say Drumpf, a lot of other people know where we stand. I think we should _both_ be applauded on how our sensitivity to language enhances our ability to convey a lot in a few words, rather than being called “childish.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrat-party-vs-democratic-party/749397.md?page=4)