our country is a democracy, a “democratic government”. The “democrat” party was formed after the country was. Everyone uses such terms as “a democratic house bill, or a democratic senator”… I submit the term should be “democrat house bill and democrat senator” etc. “democrat” to me is a noun, verb, adjetive and adverb. One never uses a term as “a republicanistic senator or republicanic agenda.” OK, am I all wet here?
Certainly, to the extent that it’s currently after the foundation of the country, and the “democrat party” still hasn’t been founded. The political party you’re thinking of is named the “Democratic party”. The founders of the party could have named it anything, but they chose that name. Does the fact that our democracy has a republican form of government confuse you?
Pudding is spelled with a ‘g’.
Please correct your name to conform to my standards.
Yes. The name of the party is “The Democratic Party”. It’s been the name of the part for over 200 years. You don’t get to choose what other people call themselves.
“Democrat Party” is a made-up name used by right-wingers to imply that the Democratic Party is somehow not a democratic institution and thus undeserving of being called “democratic”. It’s a cheap grade-school tactic, similar to chanting “nah-nah-nah, you’re a poopyhead!” in a debate.
The name of the party is the Democratic Party and has been since Andrew Jackson (before him, it was the Democratic-Republican Party).
Calling it the “Democrat Party” was devised by Republican strategists. They found people liked the word “democratic” but didn’t like the word “democrat” (the ending reminded people of “bureaucrat”). So they started calling it the “Democrat” Party as a propaganda technique.
Some people fell for the trick.
Fascinating … you wouldn’t happen to have a cite for that, would you? (insert not-trying-to-be-snarky smily)
The word democratic is the adjective based on the word democracy and republican is the adjective based on the word republic. So that will explain why you’ll never see “Republicanistic” - but unlike the work “democratic” we very rarely use the word “republican” and so your confusion is maybe not surprising.
So, the democratic party (small d - regular noun) would be any party that supports democracy. But we also have the Democratic Party (capital d - proper noun). Likewise, republicans support republics, but the Republican Party is the proper name of a specific group.
Some of the confusion also comes from shortcut nouns that have come to mean “a person of that party.” We should always specify “Democratic Party senator” or “Democratic Party member.” But we’re lazy and so we just say “a Democrat” because to say “a Democratic” begs the question “a democratic what?” The Republican Party just drops the word party without changing the Republican part so that people say “Republican” instead of “Republican Party senator” or “Republican party member.” Since we never use republican in any other sense, we’re not automatically thinking “a republican what?”
I blame the media. And teachers’ unions.
It’s not a new tactic. There’s an exposition of it in Wikipedia, well cited.
Wikipedia has a long entry on the history of Republicans calling the Democratic Party “the Democrat Party”.
They’ve been playing the “we get to pick your name” game since the 1930s.
Simul-thanks!
Politics aside, just from a language point of view, Democratic is to Republican as Democrat is to Republic. If we wanted to follow your silly rule we’d have to say things like “The Republic agenda is to kill meaningful reform to our nation’s financial system” or “The majority of Republic senators voted against the Democrat senator from Minnesota’s anti-rape legislation”.
Democratic means “of or relating to Democracy”. Republican means “or or relating to a Republic”. So that’s why one never uses the term Republicanistic, unless they’re extraordinarily ambivalent about Republics.