45 words and phrases Democrats shouldn't say: What are they? - Deseret News
By: Jennifer Graham (Deseret News)
Too much indoctrination to stop it now.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A memo obtained by Politico said 'tortured language' is putting a wall between Democrats and voters
Published: Aug 22, 2025, 1:46 p.m. MDTView 116 CommentsShareMichelle Budge, Deseret News By Jennifer GrahamJennifer is the Ideas and Culture editor and author of the Right to the Point newsletter. She has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist and writes from Boston.Your browser does not support the audio element.Play audioNEW: Try Article AudioNEW: Try Article AudioAudio quality:|Skip back 15 secondsPlay audioSkip forward 15 seconds00:0000:00Decrease playback rate1.0xIncrease playback rate00:00/00:00Skip back 15 secondsPlay audioSkip forward 15 seconds-0.5x0.6x0.7x0.8x0.9x1.0x1.1x1.2x1.3x1.4x1.5x1.6x1.7x1.8x1.9x2.0x2.1x2.2x2.3x2.4x2.5x2.6x2.7x2.8x2.9x3.0x+
Democrats are alienating Americans by their use of "tortured language" and should stop using 45 words and phrases including "patriarchy" and "privilege," according to a memo obtained by Politico.
"For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying," the memo says.
While Democrats' intentions are good, "The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant."
The memo was published on the website of Third Way, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as a center-left think tank that "champions moderate policy and political ideas."
"We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch," Third Way's executive vice president of public affairs, Matt Bennett, 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."
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The memo says the alienating words and phrases fall into six categories:
"Therapy speak" includes words like privilege, dialoguing, othering, microaggression and body shaming.
"Seminar room language" includes "critical theory," "systems of oppression," "Overton window," "cultural appropriation" and "existential threat," whether to climate, the planet or democracy.
"Organizer jargon" includes "stakeholders," "the unhoused," "barriers to participation," "food insecurity" and "person who immigrated" (as opposed to immigrant).
"Gender and orientation correctness" includes words and phrases such as "birthing person," "heteronormative," "cisgender," "deadnaming" and "LGBTQIA+."
"The shifting language of racial constructs" includes labels such as Latinx and BIPOC, and the words allyship, intersectionality and "minoritized communities."
The final category, "explaining away crime," includes the words "justice-involved," "incarcerated people" and "involuntary confinement."
The memo comes at a time when Democrats are engaged in party-wide soul-searching over how they lost the White House to Donald Trump two times. While some efforts focus on how to win back young men who voted for Trump, others involve cursing more in an effort to convey authenticity.
Longtime strategist James Carville has been sharply critical of the party in recent months, and recently told Jesse Watters on Fox News, "I want somebody to talk in clear definitive language and communicate with people in a simple elegant way and that's what the Democratic Party needs." He has also told Jen Psaki on MSNBC that Democrats need to stop using "that idiotic NPR jargon" when talking to voters.
116Comments
The memo, published Aug. 22, seems to codify the sort of things that Carville has been saying.
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The authors, who are not identified, admit that they have used some of this language in their writing in the past, but said that when "policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion."
For "a sizable segment of the American public," the 45 words and phrases are a red flag, the authors said.
"Before you draft your angry tweet thread, think about conversations with persuadable voters in your own life — especially friends, family, and co-workers — and consider whether the use of the language above would help or hurt your case."
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And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have it. Not sure they can do it. Old habits, like 20+ years, are hard to break. Whatever will they do when the words just won't come?
It has long ago been written about:
"Although one could argue that this seminal essay on 20th-century linguistics was written merely to lament the “general collapse” of language as a reflection of the general collapse of civilization following the Second World War, Orwell’s ultimate purpose is to show that social activists can unduly manipulate language for their own ends by obscuring meaning, corrupting thought, and rendering language a minefield in the political landscape. Why? Orwell says: to effect changes in thought and affections and to shame those who somehow prove impervious to manipulation.
Orwell dramatizes this assertion in Nineteen Eighty-Four . Published three years after “Politics and the English Language,” the iconic dystopic novel imagines a futuristic government that manipulates language so that its citizens conform in thought, word, and deed to a narrow political orthodoxy. Language, in fact, is the primary change agent, assisted by government-engineered fearmongering and savage punishments for language dissidents."
“Politics and the English Language.” By George Orwell. | New Oxford Review
Look what they’ve done to words like racism and genocide.
It’s everywhere. you’ll see progressive radicals who delete quotes and basic math from their own seeds when they contradict their made up narrative while calling other people propagandists.
Was it Saul Alinsky who said it?
"He who controls the language controls the masses."
I guess that is why they spend such time on words like "the undocumented" in order to replace illegal migrant.
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What about Republicans?
Do you feel that there are any phrases Republicans shouldn't say?
I don't know about republicans in general, but pretty much anything that comes out of trumps mouth would be better off left unsaid, just shut the hell up and do your job would be the best advice an advisor could give him.
That ship has sailed.
probably 50 years ago, he is his worst possible spokesperson.
How about "woke"?
I think that will be dependent on ones individual definition and interpretation on what exactly being "woke " is , it can mean one thing with certain obligations to one person , and mean something entirely different or similar with no obligations to another , and it can change as the issue changes individually .
Used as in a sentence "I just woke up" meaning either I am no longer sleeping, or I just came to a realization of something are the only meanings I put to the word. I try not to fuck up the English language.
Since you know the topic is dealing with language the Dems/Libs are using improperly, why do you jump in to compare Trump to the Dems???
Well if you are going to try and distract with a whataboutism it is nice to start with what about.
Shit, they can't even use common words correctly.
What makes this even funnier is that left wing propaganda rag politico agrees:
Some hilarious stuff here. "These are words and phrases that make MAGA uncomfortable and we wish your wouldn't use them to accurately portray our position."
It’s written by democrats.
And that just makes it even funnier.
No, it's words and phrases progressives use to show how (Un)educated and woke they are.
Normal people don't talk, write, or communicate this way.
Well, that's one way to look at. It's the wrong way but nevertheless it is a way.
Maybe Democrats should be worried more about winning elections. Democrats can't even communicate with each other. Democrats try to avoid offending someone in their party and end up using a lot of words to say nothing.
Maybe if republicans were more popular they wouldn't have to cheat (redistrict) to win elections.
Since it was written by Democrats trying to rebrand the party it should be better phrased:
"These are words and phrases that make MAGA uncomfortable, and we wish you wouldn't use them to accurately portray your position because MAGA will never understand if we use big words. These words are simply too advanced for the below 5th grade vocabulary of your average rightwing conservative."
Most of the 45 words above all have deep, complex meanings and implications in regards to the society they are being used to describe. They're not something a NASCAR fan can truly contemplate when 95% of their brain power is used to watch "car go fast, turn left" while they drink a case of Pabst. It's much easier for those folk to just attack the one using big words by calling them some unoriginal wildly off-the-mark insult.
Erm... just a suggestion.... but calling them "normie" isn't helping the whole "out of touch" situation.