Have you noticed in the last few years that the members and supporters of the Republican Party refer to their opponents as being members of the Democrat Party rather than the DemocratIC Party? Ever since I have paid any attention to politics (and we won't say how long that's been!), they have always been the Democratic Party, but in recent years the opposition (including radio talk-show hosts, bloggers, partisan media, as well as elected Republicans) has taken to using the term Democrat Party. Clearly a memo went out to all loyal Republicans and they were told to change their language, because this is a systematic and systemic change - but why?
What do you think? Do Republicans want to make sure that voters don't think of Democrats as being somehow more loyal to or supportive of democratic principles? And to insure this, they refuse to refer to them as the DemocratIC party? Somehow if you call them the DemocratIC party, you are enhancing their standing as believers in democracy? Or is it just the ugliness of the phrase that matters? Democrat Party is a much uglier phrase than Democratic Party, isn't it? Is it a slight or a slur or a slam? What is being accomplished by using a noun as an adjective in this instance?
The United States is a democratic republic; that is, we have free elections in which the people choose their decision-makers. You can have non-democratic republics (e.g., the Soviet Union, where Communist Party members both elected and ruled), but we have a representative democracy. So one major party takes its name from the republican part of the equation, and one major party takes its name from the democratic part of the equation. But the larger point is that language matters, and by-and-large the Republican Party is more intentional and more effective in its use of language. The "Democrat Party" is only one obvious and ongoing example.
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