Huckleberries Online

Bubble: Of Democrats & Democratic

Posted by DFO

Feb. 4, 2012 12:50 a.m. • 5 comments

Bubblehead: Yes, an individual is a Democrat. Used as an adjective, however, the correct form is “Democratic”. It’s like “robot”; you don’t say “The robot moved in a robot manner”, it’s a “robotic” manner. Likewise, a Democrat belongs to the Democratic Party, and the Senate, having more Democrats than Republicans, has a Democratic majority. I know… English is a confusing language. If you get confused about if it’s the “Democrat Party” or “Democratic Party”, you can just refer to their website. It has several examples of the proper usage of “Democrat” and “Democratic” in the Official English Language.

Question: Anyone out there confuse these two terms?

Five comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Sisyphus on February 04 at 7:39 a.m.
Apparently Romney, and every Republican candidate is confused. I wish they had a better command of the language.
kamm on February 04 at 8:20 a.m.
Noun, adjective…I’m good. It’s not hard to understand the subtle differences.
Republican noun and adjective are the same spelling. Hmmm.
MatthewRoot on February 04 at 11:14 a.m.
The misuse is purposeful. Most people like democratic movements and democratic elections. The misuse is an effort to separate the big D Democratic party from small the d democratic ideal.
It is just another poll tested phrase.
This strategy began long ago, probably in the 1990s with Gingrich’s GOPAC memo titled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”
Bubblehead on February 04 at 3:14 p.m.
It actually started being used as a partisan term in the 1940 election, but it wasn’t until 1996 that they changed the terminology in the Publican platform.
arroyoribera on February 12 at 2:43 a.m.
It is good to have a reminder of this distinction. However there is another distinction to be made that the Spokesman-Review itself has had difficulties getting straight on at least one occasion in the past. That is the distinction between ‘Democratic’ and ‘democratic’.

In 2004 Tom Clouse wrote an article about an assault on me and Al Mangan while we protested the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Not only did the article improperly capitalize ‘d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c’ (probably an error by an editor and not Mr. Clouse), but when I called to discuss and object to the error, a Spokesman-Review editor was adamant in insisting that I was wrong and that the word is always capitalized.

Here is the my quote with the improperly capitalized version of the word ‘d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c’:

‘‘I believe free speech is the fundamental building block of a Democratic and just society,” he said. ‘‘If I can’t stand on the corner with a simple sign, then the fundamental institutions of our society are in jeopardy.”

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=050604&ID=s1517020

As I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat, I objected in part to the implication that I was advocating for a society run by the Democratic Party. I am in favor of a just and democratic society, but not one controlled by the Democratic Party which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US ruling class, just as is the Republican Party. In other words, the US has the most perfect of political systems from an elite perspective, a two-party ruling class consensus wherein both parties represents the interest of the elites and neither represents the interests of the people. Thus all the lies and broken campaign promises.

For the reocrd, I am a socialist. Not a Socialist.

http://www.spokesman.com/letters/2010/jan/11/obama-not-socialist/

David Brookbank

« Back to Huckleberries Online

You must be logged in to post comments.
Please create a profile or log in here.

About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.