The Real Origins of the "Democrat Party" Troll

[marmar]

The Real Origins of the “Democrat Party” Troll
We can’t blame Joe McCarthy for this one. (Though he was a fan.)

BY LAWRENCE B. GLICKMAN
JAN 21, 20235:40 AM


(Slate) “Who has taken the ‘ic’ out of the party of our fathers?” asked John Temple Graves II, a Southern newspaper columnist, in July 1952. Graves had observed speaker after speaker at the recent Republican National Convention call their political foes the “Democrat” party. “This must be their way of reminding us that the Democratic party isn’t what it used to be,” he averred.

Graves was referring to the Republican practice of purposely misnaming the opposition by chopping the last two letters off its name, a habit that, more than 70 years later, not only continues, but according to the Associated Press last year, is “on the rise.”

The conservative columnist George Sokolsky may have been on point in 1956 when he wrote, “When a political party is led to believe that it can downgrade its opponent by removing an adjectival suffix from its name, it reduces itself to childishness.” But instances of the use of the childish ploy have not abated. Witness recent books by conservative writers with titles like Freedom Trumps Socialism: How the Democrat Party is Using Hitler’s Playbook to Make America Socialist, The True And Detailed Racist History Of The Democrat Party: 1830-2020, and Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation.

Democrats like Harry S. Truman occasionally responded to the “Democrat” label by calling their opponents the “Publican” party, and others offered the “Republicrat” party. But Democrats never systematically pushed these misnomers, and they’ve remained largely out of the public conversation.

....(snip)....

So, what is the history of this strange locution? Tracking the origins of the missing “ic” provides an instructive window into the evolution of modern conservatism. For although “Democrat party” has been employed for at least seven decades, it has been a shifting signifier. Tracing the history of the phrase helps us understand how the Republican Party has defined itself by what it was not. The phrase has always been about “othering” the Democratic Party, but the meaning of the slur has shifted significantly in politically telling ways.

This “ic”-y history begins in 1946, when its key popularizer, the improbably named Brazilla Carroll Reece, a veteran Tennessee congressman, was selected as chair of the Republican National Committee. Reece did not coin the term; “Democrat party” had been used by headline writers and politicians of both parties since the 19th century. Before 1946, however, the phrase did not have a straightforward connotation; it was sometimes used neutrally, sometimes positively, and sometimes negatively. ...............(more)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/democrat-party-republican-insult.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Republicants

Because they can't.

[Girard442]

2. Amazing we haven't already defused this by simply owning it.

[MMBeilis]

3. Interesting that it goes back so far. Nineteenth century, who knew? I had thought that Bob Dole....

.....had first used it when he went on about "Democrat wars, all of them".

[FakeNoose]

4. It works both ways: I don't call them "Republicans" anymore because "Repukes" is shorter

... and more appropriate.

[Grins]

11. I call them "Rethuglicans." NM

[Hermit-The-Prog]

5. Repukes, because they simply regurgitate whatever their puppet masters feed them.

[tenderfoot]

6. People use that term here all the time

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17567103

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Is there a Repube party?

[IA8IT]

8. Repubican...Take the L away

[dsc]

9. I think every time someone does that

the interviewer should say you are a (fill in important job title here) why do you not know the difference between a noun and an adjective. I learned that in 1st grade.

[czarjak]

10. At least they own it.