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Go Home Lineage Of A Slur

THE SPINE SEPTEMBER 10, 2006

Lineage Of A Slur

BY TNR STAFF

Mike Crowley's September 8 posting on The Plank calls attention to the Republican habit of calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party" ... or warning about a "Democrat Congress" or, even worse yet, a "Democrat president." But this tick was a custom that went into disuse for nearly 50 years. Its origins, however, are interesting and were toxic. It was Senator Joe McCarthy who, with his twisted mouth often oozing the charming brew of beer and saliva, would snarl out the words "Democrat Party," as if they referred to vermin. Perhaps it is an indication of Republican panic that they have descended to using McCarthy's cheap tactics to discredit the opposition. And have I not heard Bill O'Reilly doing exactly the same thing?

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34 comments

Keep going...March On...Even when I disagree with you, I find you sincere and touching.

- sheilalevin

September 11, 2006 at 6:52am

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Interesting point, Mr. Peretz. This nonsense from the GOP really bugs me. To take your point further, it does seem that the modern GOP is not the party of Lincoln at all, but the Party of McCarthy, from McCarthy, via Nixon and George Wallace (though nominally not a Republican), to Rove, Bush and Delay. People assume it's the party of Goldwater-Reagan, but my impression is that neither would go to such theatrical lenghts to pitch a hopeless argument.

- hustveit

September 11, 2006 at 6:57am

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I have no hesitation in warning the American public about the outside possibility of Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Are Democrats vermin? No, just misguided souls. The Democrats are a disaster when it comes to both the war on terror and economic issues. Sigh, many years ago I was an elected Model Cities official in Detroit, Michigan. My mother was appalled that I voted for Ronald Reagan. There's no turning back now.

- thomsondavid

September 11, 2006 at 11:04am

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Isn't the "Democrat Party" simply the party of Democrats? I've never seen anything sinister in this particular usage. If anything, the "-ic" at the end of "Democratic" seems a bit superfluous. (Think of a "Republicanic" party).

- litwinski

September 11, 2006 at 11:56am

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Just as my print subscription continues to arrive a week late, so does Peretz believe he's telling us something we haven't already learned from Rick Hertzberg -- in July! http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060 807ta_talk_hertzberg It's sort of charming, really, that Peretz's ego is seemingly so outsized that he doesn't deign to read the work of a former TNR editor.

- bdylan69

September 11, 2006 at 12:15pm

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Rick Hertzberg washed out of TNR a couple of decades ago. IIRC it was an Esquire or NY Mag piece in the mid- to late 1980s that chronicled the knock-down arguments btn him and Marty ("F--- you, Rick!" "F--- you, Marty!!"). As to who's had the more illustrious record, and the greater impact on Wshington and the nation, since then, I'll leave it to the readers to decide. Me, I'll go with the magazine that's been must-read in DC for thirty+ years. And no, that's not the Tina Brown rag.

- teplukhin

September 11, 2006 at 12:36pm

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"Abu Ghraib"

- bdylan69

September 11, 2006 at 1:04pm

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Educated people don't use the word "bureaucrat" this way-- did you ever hear a Republican tak about a "bureaucrat snafu" or a "technocrat solution"? The main problem with "democrat" used as a modifier is that it's deliberately dumb, lumpen. A neat rhetorical trick that's designed to not only link Democrats with dumb, lumpen types-- as if it were Dems who spoke that way-- but also, subconsciously, to appeal to those very lumpen, those who actually do drop the "-ic" when using "democrat" as an adjective!

- teplukhin

September 11, 2006 at 1:38pm

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Of course Democrat ends with 'rat', a a fact driven home by a visit to the Right's spittle flecked corners of the web. And who can forget the word RATS dancing around GW's 2000 campaign ad? Of course the word Democrat has come to be synonmous with the political party, whereas democratic can refer to a principal, a process, a method of reform , etc. so if you're trying to divorce the party's name from any positive exterals, cutting off the IC is a good way to do it.

- aculimic

September 11, 2006 at 2:26pm

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so "republic" party would be ok with you? hmmm...

- lindamwil

September 11, 2006 at 3:07pm

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So who's the democratic principal?

- olez

September 11, 2006 at 3:56pm

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You said - "The main problem with "democrat" used as a modifier is that it's deliberately dumb, lumpen." News flash -- people who belong to the Democratic Party are ALREADY called "Democrats." I don't see anyone arguing that that particular shortening is offensive. Following your logic, we should probably call them "Democratics".

- litwinski

September 11, 2006 at 4:23pm

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I think you're wrong here, Lit. To pick up where Tep left off, you wouldn't say "the diplomat corps", instead of the diplomatic corps. There's no denying that this is a conscious effort. Bush used to switch between "Democratic Party" and "Democrat Party" whenever he changed from swing-districts to safe Republican districts in 2004. It's not necessarilly offensive, it's perhaps more silly than offensive.

- hustveit

September 11, 2006 at 4:39pm

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I say, hell, yes! At the very least, throw it back in the Pub-crawlers' faces. America's not going to vote for beta dogs. If the Democrats want to win, they have to counterpunch. Doesn't do the Democrats a damned bit of good if they only prove they can take a punch. They've gotta bring it, too. Which begs the question: why am I learning about the McCarthy-"Democrat" connection from Mr. Peretz' blog and not from Reid, Pelosi, or another national Democratic figure? This should be a talking point for every Democratic attack dog on every network for the next two weeks, e.g., "While Mr. [insert GOP name here] refers to my DEMOCRATIC party as the 'Democrat Party,' the name the discraced Senator Joe McCarthy called it 50 years ago, we DEMOCRATS are calling for..." or the like.

- williamyard

September 11, 2006 at 6:01pm

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Slaves to K Street: Recorporate Party Bush's Sycophants: Republickers Deficit-Builders: Reporkers Denial about Climate Change: Retropubs Bankruptcy Overhaul: RepoMan Party

- williamyard

September 11, 2006 at 6:13pm

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You're being silly. "Republican" is both a person and an adjective. "Democrat" only refers to a person. It can't be an adjective without an -ic. Look it up in a dictionary, along with any other word ending in "-crat." Spot the problem with this sentence: "Country A is more democrat than Country B, because Country A holds regular elections." I think Republicans do it because "Democratic" sounds good in the small-d sence, as in that previous sentence, and they can't bring themselves to call the opposing party by a positive-sounding adjective. So they make their cute little protest by leaving off the -ic.

- jhildner

September 11, 2006 at 6:53pm

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In Nixon and Agnew's day, Repo-slurs relied on alliterative, lengthy, and grammatically correct phrases such as "college of cowardly containment" and "nattering nabobs of negativism." Using "democrat" as an adjective is a deliberate shift from Agnew to George Wallace-speak. Which is why it gained traction under W, the king of faux-redneck posturing. A good measure of how far the Republicants are willing to move away from W will be the frequency of democrat-as-an-adjective. My guess is that, as Giuliani and McCain start to get the upper hand and centrists come out of the closet, that frequency will drop to zero. Bad news for our side; good news for the nation.

- teplukhin

September 11, 2006 at 7:23pm

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Ha ha - I like "Republickers" (Prods in the south used to call our type "Catlickers"), but it works better in print: sounds oddly teutonic when spoken; dilutes the effect. Also a bit too lowbrow. Best to fight 'em with superior wit and style, non? No such problem w Republicant, which suggests replicant, sycophant, pissant, adam ant etc.

- teplukhin

September 11, 2006 at 7:27pm

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Republi-can't!

- williamyard

September 11, 2006 at 7:33pm

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This reminds me of the way "Islamist" really came out of the woodwork a few years ago, and then how Andrew Sullivan started talking about "Christianists". I'm still not sure what that means, except that it refers to people he doesn't like.

- perkowitz

September 11, 2006 at 7:55pm

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This is a peculiar and inane little obsession by a few people on the left. I'm surprised to see Peretz, who is usually pretty reasonable, getting worked up by this. I doubt any Republican has thought two seconds about this and I doubt any of them think it's a slur (how it could be a slur to say "Democrat Party," but not be a slur to say--as we all do--that "so and so a Democrat," is beyond me). If anything, Republicans probably drop the "-ic" because, like "nukular" Bush, a few of them have a little trouble pronouncing long words.

- litwinski

September 11, 2006 at 9:44pm

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publicans for Republicans. Biblical and not so complimentary at the same time. It has a nice ring to it, I must say.

- tnmats

September 11, 2006 at 10:16pm

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I believe "Democrat Party," etc. pre-dates McCarthy. It was certainly in common use when I was a teenager in the 1960's south -- by folks in both parties -- with no onus attached. It's rarer now, but only with the demise of my parents' generation. Ditto for "tar baby" by the way, which was put to adaptive reuse in the Uncle Remus collection.

- Fithian

September 11, 2006 at 10:22pm

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Ah, Mr. Kettle. You'll be playing with Mr. Pot today. Yes, I noticed: you're both wearing black. You can't counter the noise by adding more noise. Just stop.

- JonGarfunkel

September 11, 2006 at 11:19pm

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Gingrich used "Democrat party" all the time and he is a party intellectual.

- marknsa

September 11, 2006 at 11:26pm

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Someone refering to "that Democrat Party up there in Washington" could be defended as expressing themselves in an informal, albeit lazy, way. But when a whole party, serious men start doing this (though I would be curious to see if they do it to their face in Congress and in debates, not the Republican style) they are undoubtedly doing something consciously. Lit, a whole party doesn't suddenly change the way they spell the name of a political party, and start handing out leaflets (and the website Crowley pointed out to) with this misspelling. It's to demean your opponents party, implying that the Democrats are so unserious that their party shouldn't be taken serious, and like others have mentioned, it's to dislodge the positive word "Democratic" away from your opponent's party. It's very one of the clearest signs that the Republican party is only glued together by partisanship and hatred for the other side. I like of the suggestions above, especially "Republickers". It's not as that GOP party is adverse to doing this, just look at the Republicans recent Defeatocrats".

- hustveit

September 12, 2006 at 5:32am

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I remember reading somewhere in the 90s when the Republicans first started using the term that it was a conscious choice: publicly, the explanation was that they felt saying "Democratic Party" made it sound as if the Republicans were not "democratic" (obviously, they had decided their constituency had no idea of that small-r "republican" means anything); less publicly, it was because they had found that "Democrat Party" sounded ugly to the ears. They're no dummies, those "Republican intellectuals," just venal. Walter Bilderback

- walterturg

September 12, 2006 at 11:25am

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The Republicans took it to a new low at the ceremony on the Front Steps of the Capitol to remember the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. On the Capitol steps, Speaker Hastert introduced Leader Pelosi by calling her the "Democrat Leader, Nancy Pelosi". This on the "non-political" remembrance of 9/11.

- benbarry

September 12, 2006 at 11:56am

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The more that Democrats announce they are offended by "Democrat Party," the more Republicans will use it. Guaranteed. In that respect, our politics has not progressed beyond what you'd expect from third graders in an average schoolyard. I think a better course of action is to ignore it, or better yet to make fun of those who use it (i.e., humor) rather than the preferred response of liberals, which is to get all heavy and take offense.

- litwinski

September 12, 2006 at 1:20pm

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This isn't new. Wasn't Dick Armey (among others) using this locution a dozen years ago or more?

- jrosevear

September 12, 2006 at 5:15pm

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Prepublican?

- jhildner

September 12, 2006 at 6:06pm

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Sorry I'm late to this party! I thought that one point was that if you say Dem-o-crat, a three syllable word ending in a "t" in the right way, it sounds like Com-mu-nist, a three syllable word ending in a "t". I like using the word "Republicant". It sums up the entire philosophy of that party. "The Republic Can't".

- brucegg

September 14, 2006 at 9:05am

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If we're dropping syllables, why not swing the other way on the other party and call them Publican? They've been strenuously whoring after lobbyist dollars since taking power... BTW, I seem to remember "Democrat Party as a locution of Bob Dole's when he was Ford's running mate.

- adsprung

September 14, 2006 at 9:31pm

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again, no cookie posts. The thread didn't interest me...

- MrCookie1

September 16, 2006 at 4:57pm

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