Democrats should speak more “like normal people” and examine their language, liberal think tank Third Way said in a memo.
The Democratic Party is scrutinizing its messaging, platform, and candidates that it’s marketing to Americans after a decisive 2024 election loss.
Third Way, in a memo addressed to “All Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA” and titled, “Was it something I said?” believes Democrats “use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”
Some of those words and phrases, contained within several different categories, include holding space, microaggression, triggering, systems of oppression, the unhoused, pregnant people, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and involuntary confinement.
Several of the words listed have been a point of contention or subjected to mocking from conservatives. Pregnant people, which suggests men can be pregnant, has been of particular interest.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has been critical of transgender ideology and combative with transgender people, criticized Politico for using the term “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” last month.
“Ah yes, ‘pregnant people’ because ‘woman’ is now offensive to @politico,” Mace posted on X.
The categories included therapy-speak, seminar room language, organizer jargon, gender/orientation correctness, the shifting language of racial constructs, and explaining away crime.
The group said in the memo that excluding the words from the Democratic vocabulary could prevent the “eggshell dance of political correctness, which leaves the people we aim to reach cold or fearful of admonishment.”
Top members of the think tank want to get Democrats back in touch with voters.
“We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they’re leading a seminar at Antioch,” Matt Bennett, Third Way’s executive vice president of public affairs, told Politico.
“We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think, and talk. In recent weeks, this has become a bit of a thing, with comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman highlighting how insane Dems can sometimes sound. Also, elected officials like [Delaware Rep.] Sarah McBride and [Kentucky Gov.] Andy Beshear are begging their colleagues to just be normal again,” he added.
Lanae Erickson, Third Way’s senior vice president, also told the outlet that people “can’t relate to something unless it has some edge about it.”
“And we had shaved off all of our edges in an attempt to never make anyone upset about anything,” Erickson said.
Third Way noted in the memo that it is guilty of using some of the language it has sought to now exclude. It wrote that it is “not out to police language, ban phrases, or create our own form of censorship. Truth be told, we have published papers that have used some of these words as well. But when policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion.”
Erickson wants to change the “toxicity” of the Democratic Party, saying, “Part of the problem was that we were using words that literally no normal people used — that we were sticking to messages that were so overly scripted that they basically sounded like nothing.”
She added that good stewards of the party’s language include former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). All three are considered to be on the moderate side for Democrats and have been floated as 2028 presidential candidates.
The Democratic Party is at odds with the direction of the Republicans. Most of the GOP agrees that Vice President JD Vance appears to be its future, while Democrats are very split on one candidate. Many, from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have been considered.
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Vance observed this week, after visiting Washington, D.C.’s, Union Station during President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the district, that Democrats need to adapt their language.
“Look, the autopsy for the Democrats, some free political advice from the president of the United States is: stop sounding like crazy people,” Vance said.
