Excellent article from Fivethirtyeight.com. Best to read it here, unless you just want the better excerpts:
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Ari Fleischer Rips Administration for “Childish” Limbaugh Strategy
In an era when there has been a lot of talk about mutual respect, it is striking that a huge number of Republicans continue to go out of their way to use the epithet “Democrat Party” rather than the party’s actual name, the Democratic Party.
...[snip Ari Fleischer stuff]
I’ve been wanting to write about this for awhile. During my On the Road trip, in my first McCain office stop in Reno, I interviewed a University of Nevada student volunteer named Brian Neppl about the McCain field office there. He was explaining something, referred to the “Democratic Party,” paused, apologized, and corrected himself: “Democrat Party.” What caught my attention was the un-self-consciousness with which he did it. Republicans, who have decades of think-tank fueled training in the precise use of words (think: Frank Luntz) seem to have a specific design.
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As for the second goal, the non-tactical, end-in-itself enjoyment of antagonizing Democrats, to use Fleischer’s term, is pure, uncut childishness. Moreover, it’s just boring. Newsflash – human beings have figured out a lot of ways to antagonize other human beings with pejoratives. It’s like Palin-as-hockey agitator, no great skill involved (and of course "Democrat Party" is a Palin staple). It’s literally the most basic childhood taunt – taking someone’s real name, and calling them something else to provoke a reaction. It's the single-celled amoeba of verbal harassment. It’s unmistakable that much of the term’s use involves an attempt at agitation.
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On the flip side of the coin, denying another person or group basic respect means that once the epithet escapes a Republican’s lips, he or she can’t complain when no respect is returned. Some Democrats aren’t bothered. Their perspective is that the very nature of such a tiny, repetitive jab, like a sibling flicking you on the shoulder, is that it pales in comparison with the constellation of behaviors that create actual wounds.
However, some Democrats find it to be a threshold issue in a conversation. It's irrelevant whether it wounds; it's a communication signal. If your behavior choice is a playground tactic, why should my behavior choice be to listen to what you say in whatever else is coming out of your mouth? You won’t agree to my name. I am supposed to take anything you say seriously? Couples therapists know a thing or two about this one. Respect is a threshold condition for listening.
If Republicans genuinely want Democrats to listen to their policy ideas, they shouldn't use the term because it's counterproductive. For example, when I hear the term, nothing else matters that comes out of that person's mouth. That Republican has failed the threshold bad faith test, and who cares what they say?
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By the same token, if Republicans don't care if Democrats listen to them, which may indeed be the case for many, they don't have to care about this sort of symbolic signal-sending. In last summer's Republican National Convention party platform meeting, Republicans changed "Democrat Party" (ensconced in the official platform in 1996) to "Democratic Party." Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour grudgingly admitted that probably they shouldn't act like kids and instead use the real term, "at least in writing."
While the terminology is trivial in some ways, the same way that emphasis of Obama's middle name is trivial (it is his name), there is a serious policy extension of the tactic. This threshold issue of withholding basic respect underlies historical Republican demonization of gays, blacks, immigrants, and other groups. Republicans may protest that conclusion, but think of Limbaugh's "Halfrican," or try talking to an Arab-American while saying everything normally and rationally except always calling Barack Obama: Barack Hussein Obama. Do you think the rest of whatever else you say will be heard? When Sean Hannity uses "Hussein," over and over, he is not trying to convince an undecided to adopt his viewpoint, and certainly not persuade an Obama supporter to come around to his way of thinking. He's speaking to the home crowd, his intent is to use the word as a weapon.
One of the reasons the "childish" party of Fleischer and Limbaugh is having such a tough time in the wilderness is they've done a too-clever-by-half job figuring out how to systematically weaponize language. There's no referee. It's their right. It's also no great parlor trick, and you can go to any grade-school playground and find the same. The day Republicans work to signal good faith by policing their own house on basic respect in language will probably run parallel with the day we'll see the party reborn as an ideologically grownup force.
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