semantic jiu-jitsu

I've been noticing the pejorative use of the term "Democrat party" by Republican shills getting more and more frequent again as the Iraq funding fight heats up.

The Republican tough-guy wanna-be's think it's cute to refer to the Democratic party that way, it lets them draw out the final ("rat") syllable and is also a classic schoolyard bully's way of belittling the target of his taunts. It is a method by which Republicans can casually and openly deride the two-thirds of the country that they disagree with and maintain a plausible deniability that they just slipped and omitted the final syllable.

I have a suggestion.

The Democratic party should change their name.

They should officially become "the Democrat party."

The change means nothing, but the Republicans will find themselves suddenly in the position of saying the name of the party correctly, which will remove that little public display of disrespect, and if they suddenly start calling the newly-named Democrat party by another name, their tactic will be perfectly obvious and will demonstrate their lack of common courtesy and ethics to anyone that can hear.


The Democrat party. Short, sweet, simple, and chock full of inadvertent respect.