Was It Something The Democrats Said?

A Response to Third Way’s Political Language Memo

I’m so grateful to Jonathan Bernstein over at Good Politics/Bad Politics for putting the topic of this post on my radar. While I was going to take a week off, he pushed me to check out Third Way’s memo, Was It Something I Said? which argues that Democrats’ choice of words alienates more than it persuades. The memo suggests that terms coming out of academia, organizing circles, and activist communities sound “elitist, divisive, or confusing” to ordinary voters. It then argues that Democrats should stop using 50 words and phrases that alienate voters.

I don’t know anyone at Third Way and had never encountered that group or website before, so none of this is “personal”, but when someone asks me to look at congressional word usage - I’m pretty much always up for it.

I agree that many of the words listed have more negatives than positives in political arenas. But the idea that Democrats have been the ones driving these terms into the public sphere is worth checking against the evidence. Terms like “woke,” “critical race theory,” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion” didn’t come out of Congress, they migrated from leftist activist or academic spaces…and then were repeated endlessly by Republicans more-so than Democrats, but in a way to complain that Democrats had been using them too much. In fact, this is the topic of a book I’m working on (and if that’s interesting to you, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on the matter).

Here’s how it breaks down when we check the DCinbox archive of 208,000+ official congressional e-newsletters from 2010 to today to see who uses the words and terms outlined in the Third Way memo.

Words and Phrases That Never Appear

• Environmental violence

• Body shaming

• Subverting norms

• Postmodernism

• Overton Window

• Small “d” democracy

• Progressive stack

• Person who immigrated

• Carceration

• Involuntary confinement

• Heteronormative

• Minoritized communities

Maybe these words happen in campaigns and because I’m always analyzing official comms I am not as familiar…but no one in Congress writes official e-newsletters using them.

Split / Mixed Use

None of these terms are used that often with the exception of “stakeholder”.

• Othering: 3 total — Spanberger (D), Lee (D), Hatch (R)

• Existential threat: roughly 50/50 split

• Intersectionality: split evenly between parties

• Cisgender 3 from Republicans 2 from Democrats

• Allyship: 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats

• Stakeholders: used more by Republicans, but common to both (roughly 2:1)

  

And that sorta makes sense to me because “stakeholder” seems to be more out of the business and policy spaces more than the partisan left.

Terms Democrats Use More

I will note that none of these terms (except for LGBTQ) are widely used by any stretch make sure check out the y-axes on the graphs below to see what I mean - but these are the terms that are used more by Democrats:

• Centering: 51 total, 37 from Democrats

• Safe space: 81, mostly Democrats

• Holding space: 2 total (AOC and Rick Allen)

• Systems of oppression: 6 total, all Democrats

• Heuristic: 4 total (3 from Terri Sewell (D), 1 from Paul Ryan (R))

• Barriers to participation: 6 total, 5 Democrats

• The unhoused: more Democrats

  

• Food insecurity: more Democrats

  

• Housing insecurity: more Democrats

  

• Pregnant people: Democrats

• Patriarchy: 4 total, 3 Democrats

• LGBTQ: overwhelmingly Democrats

  

• Latinx: more Democrats, but not much and declining

• BIPOC: more Democrats, but not much and declining

• Justice-involved: more Democrats

• Incarcerated people: more Democrats

Terms Republicans Use More (sometimes to mock Democrats or talk about their supposed use)

• Privilege: 11,691 uses by Republicans vs. 4,492 by Democrats.

• Birthing person: 9 total — 8 from Republicans mocking the term, 1 from Bernie Sanders’ staff interviewing a midwife.

• Triggering: more Republican usage

• Microaggression: only Matt Gaetz (R-FL) ever used this word

  

• Cultural appropriation: also only Matt Gaetz (R-FL)

  

• Critical theory: 5 uses, all Republican. (By contrast, “critical race theory” appears much more, also overwhelmingly Republican).

  

• Dialoguing: once, from Republican Saxby Chambliss

• Radical transparency: 6 total (2 D, 4 R)

• Deadnaming: 1, from Byron Donalds (R-FL)

• Privilege far more from Republicans, but oftentimes in the context of it being a privilege to serve in office.

The Bigger Picture (As I Understand It)

Looking at actual usage, the Third Way memo reads less like an audit of Democrats’ language and more like a list of terms Republicans tell us Democrats are saying. The data show that many of these phrases barely exist in constituent communications, and when they do, Republicans are often the ones writing them either to lampoon Democrats or to spotlight them as proof of “wokeness.” But again, these are not campaign emails, and I’m far out of campaign world for the most part.

But in doing this version of a check and in my understanding of how American politics can move forward in a more functional way, I agree we need to get away from what Third Way calls “the eggshell dance of political correctness.” People and politicians should be willing to adapt words when they don’t land and should be open to trying out new terms that capture novel experiences/problems that we need to deal with.

But as long as Republicans can keep defining Democrats by terms Democrats themselves rarely use, and everyone comes to believe this through repetition, that is a much bigger challenge for impressions of the Democratic Party than any lefty words they might use on occasion.