Loeffler, Perdue join growing number of Senate Republicans backing $2,000 stimulus checks

[Ford_Prefect]

10. That's the Democratic Party. Conservatives began using the other term to avoid the obvious meaning

and as a slur. We are democrats but the party is The Democratic Party.
The Federalists are particularly at fault. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet) Although it would appear that Newt Gingrich and Shrub Bush are equally to blame for more recent usage in GOP dogma and political diatribe.
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Columnist Russell Baker wrote in 1976:
The origin of this illiterate phrase, goes back, I believe to the era of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy ... The chief trouble with "the Democrat party" is that it makes the Republicans saying it sound both illiterate and coy, and, so, is like a shotgun that is all kick and no fire ... A party whose membership is down to 22 percent of the electorate, as the Republican party is, hardly needs ways to irritate voters from the opposing party whom it must seduce if it is to succeed.

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In March 2009, after Representative Jeb Hensarling (R–Texas) repeatedly used the phrase Democrat Party when questioning U.S. Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag, Representative Marcy Kaptur (D–Ohio) said:

I'd like to begin by saying to my colleague from Texas that there isn't a single member on this side of the aisle that belongs to the "Democrat Party". We belong to the Democratic Party. So the party you were referring to doesn't even exist. And I would just appreciate the courtesy when you're referring to our party ... to refer to it as such.