Democratic think tank creates list of LGBT/feminist/Gen z words that are killing the party’s perception.

[Braman]

This article is triggering

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/22/democrats-woke-language-blacklist-00519421?nid=0000018f-3124-de07-a98f-3be4d1400000&nname=politico-toplines&nrid=06f3f82e-b911-43c8-bc61-0c079830893b

In a new memo, shared exclusively with POLITICO, the center-left think tank Third Way is circulating a list of 45 words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using, alleging the terms put “a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities.” It’s a set of words that Third Way suggests “people simply do not say, yet they hear them from Democrats.”

They span six categories — from “therapy speak” to “explaining away crime” — and put in sharp relief a party that authors say makes Democrats “sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness.” In the document, titled “Was It Something I Said?” Third Way argues that to “please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant,” according to the memo.

The words:

Spoiler

Among the blacklisted terms: privilege … violence (as in “environmental violence”) … dialoguing … triggering … othering … microaggression … holding space … body shaming … subverting norms … systems of oppression … cultural appropriation … Overton window … existential threat to [the climate, democracy, economy] … radical transparency … stakeholders … the unhoused … food insecurity … housing insecurity … person who immigrated … birthing person … cisgender … deadnaming … heteronormative … patriarchy … LGBTQIA+ … BIPOC … allyship … incarcerated people … involuntary confinement.

 

[ORDER_66]

 

[invalid]

the worst is therapy speak. i don't take anyone seriously talking bout "trauma", "trigger", "self-care" and "holding space" in any serious capacity.

the rest of the words are high academia-ish critical theory/black studies speak.

 

[LordDeathwatch]

Got DAMN

 

[the cac mamba]

good. this soft nonsense is killing the party's image. Democrats have become the party of getting called down to Human Resources; it is NOT winning them elections

anyone who refers to women as "birthing people", so as not to offend trannies, should be institutionalized

 

[At30wecashout]

Good ole thirdway, the centrist specialists. Ya'll fixated on these words when that isn't at all why Democrats have a shyt reputation. Just to back up my claim:

Third Way

www.thirdway.org

As passionate moderates—or “radical centrists” per the New York Times—our work is not about splitting the difference but about standing for a values-driven, reform-oriented politics that can both deliver electoral power and drive meaningful policy change. We believe in building an opportunity economy that rewards hard work, making progress on social issues to uphold our fundamental freedoms, winning the global clean energy technology race, and securing our safety against evolving 21st century threats.

Literally the shyt that has tanked the national Democratic platform, missing the forest for the trees. Its not the words, it's the lack of media infrastructure, the terrible national politics VS Republicans focusing on local issues and taking it national ("THEY ARE EATING THE PETS!" or "Illegals are flooding the border!" from a weird white man who lives in an all-white town and never interacts with anyone else), being Republican-lite etc.

I see some usual suspects in here and the fact that people still think its those lil bullshyt pet issues is sad. Republicans know how to tell a story. Its quite telling that Republicans can pull the most gaudy donors for everything but people think they are the party of working people because they put a doofus with a twang worth *only* 20 million as their candidate.

 

[Cloutius Maximus]

just bring back meat and potatoes economic populism. jimmy hoffa type shyt (without the corruption)

bring back "a chicken in every pot and roof over every head" and call out the fascists and those who ride for MAGA for white grievance/white nationalism.

I really don't think Gavin Newsom is that guy he's just another corporate neoliberal, the pool is trash rn

 

[Braman]

Good ole thirdway, the centrist specialists. Ya'll fixated on these words when that isn't at all why Democrats have a shyt reputation. Just to back up my claim:

Third Way

www.thirdway.org

Literally the shyt that has tanked the national Democratic platform, missing the forest for the trees. Its not the words, it's the lack of media infrastructure, the terrible national politics VS Republicans focusing on local issues and taking it national ("THEY ARE EATING THE PETS!" or "Illegals are flooding the border!" from a weird white man who lives in an all-white town and never interacts with anyone else), being Republican-lite etc.

I see some usual suspects in here and the fact that people still think its those lil bullshyt pet issues is sad. Republicans know how to tell a story. Its quite telling that Republicans can pull the most gaudy donors for everything but people think they are the party of working people because they put a doofus with a twang worth *only* 20 million as their candidate.

You wrote all that, and then said ‘republicans know how to tell a story’

Oh you mean, they know how to use words better?!

 

[BaggerofTea]

The democrats are so scared to discuss meaningful economic change for ordinary people that they are willing to sabotage their shyt on ruminating about nonsense..

No body cares about the words you use, come up with a goddamn working class focused economic policy for God sakes

 

[At30wecashout]

You wrote all that, and then said ‘republicans know how to tell a story’

Oh you mean, they know how to use words better?!

Selective reading is amazing.

"THEY ARE EATING THE PETS!" or "Illegals are flooding the border!"

Do you know the Venezuelans who were coming up to the USA were being let in legally at the USA/Mexican border, processed for their asylum claims, given temporary protected status pending court cases, and then were summarily shipped to blue cities while Republicans pretended we had open borders and that it was Democrats letting them in? AND Trump stopped a bipartisan bill that would have funded more immigration judges, more border help, and put a stop to a bunch of things as they were but Trump dumped it because he needed something to run on? No matter how big of a lie it is, the sheer number of conservative AM radio stations, podcasters, Christian stations that preach conservative politics, and news engineering to be sure they all cover the same topics mostly the same way with different hosts keeps it in the public mind until to them it becomes truth.

This centrist article is talking about words, not about the fact that voting for Democrats on the national level can feel like voting for an 80s Republican or a 90s....Bill Clinton. The words aren't the problem. People having short ass attention spans, poor education, and little time to look in depth about anything and the Democrats haven't found a working platform, successor, or party message since 2012 is the problem, not stupid little buzzwords.

 

[the cac mamba]

This centrist article is talking about words, not about the fact that voting for Democrats on the national level can feel like voting for an 80s Republican or a 90s....Bill Clinton. The words aren't the problem. People having short ass attention spans, poor education, and little time to look in depth about anything and the Democrats haven't found a working platform, successor, or party message since 2012 is the problem, not stupid little buzzwords.

this isnt true though. Democrats won the 2018 and 2020 election cycles

the potential is there, they can win in '26 and '28. but this is the kinda stuff that gave that piece of shyt Trump a window to come back. people are tired of being talked down to by liberals who won't just leave you the fukk alone

 

[At30wecashout]

this isnt true though. Democrats won the 2018 and 2020 election cycles

the potential is there, they can win in '26 and '28. but this is the kinda stuff that gave that piece of shyt Trump a window to come back. people are tired of being talked down to by liberals who won't just leave you the fukk alone

2018: When is the last time a President has kept their House and Senate advantage during the midterms? People vote for individuals in the party. Individual members can have great popularity with their constituents but the party gets low grades due to perception. Midterm flips are expected.

2020: once-in-a-century pandemic lead to job losses, runaway inflation, and and a President who politicized it the whole way, making it worse. The pandemic got so bad that mail-in-voting went way up.

A Deep Dive into Absentee Ballot Rejection in the 2020 General Election

elections-blog.mit.edu

The November 2020 general election saw a surge of mail-in/absentee voting, mainly in response to safety concerns surrounding voting in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the overall total of mail ballots cast went from 28.8 million in 2016 to 66.4 million in 2020, a whopping 131 percent increase.

And Despite Pandemic Challenges, 2020 Election Had Largest Increase in Voting Between Presidential Elections on Record

The 2020 election featured the largest increase in voters between two presidential elections on record with 17 million more people voting than in 2016.

There will always be a pendulum swing with current politics, but it wasn't that way. For 1954 until 1994 Republicans didn't sniff legislative majorities. Why? FDR coalition and the New Deal politics. It took 50 years for Republicans to kill Roe v Wade. The long term is playing out now and America might 'tard itself into forgetting that Republicans are fukking us right now.

Mind you, when you speak of folks "talking down", there is a segment of folks who look at anyone who is educated and speaks in ways that seem to be abstractions to them. They also vote solidly Republican. Who are they? White, non-college educated males.

 

[Busted_Toes]

This is how shea butter twitter talk

 

[the cac mamba]

is a segment of folks who look at anyone who is educated and speaks in ways that seem to be abstractions to them. They also vote solidly Republican. Who are they? White, non-college educated males.

that used to be true, until recently. when Democrats started calling anyone who doesn't want boys playing sports with their daughter a "transphobe"

Dems can't be held hostage by this bullshyt, and expect to compete outside of dark blue areas. i want to win the electoral college, not some fukkin san francisco purity test

 

[At30wecashout]

that used to be true, until recently. when Democrats started calling anyone who doesn't want boys playing sports with their daughter a "transphobe"

Dems can't be held hostage by this bullshyt, and expect to compete outside of dark blue areas. i want to win the electoral college, not some fukkin san francisco purity test

Here you go again. As a white male, what ultimately caused the white male vote to vanish from the Democratic party? We can even include the white female vote. I can tell you it had nothing to do with stuff like trans folks.

And I bring this up because this will consistently be the schism between the Dems and the white demographic which is the most populous one. It is a big part of why the Democratic parties tent gets ever bigger, but no matter what the party actually puts together as a platform, the white demographic focuses on cultural issues stemming back to what I was hinting at. We both know what it is.