Progressives are facing plenty of real challenges during Trump 2.0, but losing voters because we sound like academic robots shouldn’t be one of them. The Washington Post just highlighted a growing backlash among Democrats who are fed up with jargon that alienates voters more than it persuades them.
Maybe it’s using the word “oligarchs” instead of rich people. Or referring to “people experiencing food insecurity” rather than Americans going hungry. Or “equity” in place of “equality,” or “justice-involved populations” instead of prisoners.
As Democrats wrestle with who to be in the era of President Donald Trump, a growing group of party members — especially centrists — is reviving the argument that Democrats need to rethink the words they use to talk with the voters whose trust they need to regain.
Progressives have developed a lingo that sounds like utter nonsense to most people. “Privilege” is used to describe those with inherent advantages; “appropriation” frames almost any cultural exchange as theft; the “Land Back” movement unrealistically suggests that stolen lands should be returned to Native people; “LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA” is an actual acronym; and uttering the phrase “settler colonialism” is guaranteed to spark a fight. Inside activist circles, this language might resonate. Outside of them, it doesn’t just fail to persuade—it actively alienates people.
Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona isn’t a centrist—but he talks like a human.
“Some words are just too Ivy League-tested terms,” Gallego told The Washington Post. “I’m going to piss some people off by saying this, but ‘social equity’ — why do we say that? Why don’t we say, ‘We want you to have an even chance’?”
Gallego and I have agreed on this topic before, when it came to the use of the asinine and self-destructive term “Latinx” as an attempt to create a gender-neutral label for Latinos.
We make fun of President Donald Trump for speaking at a fourth-grade level, the lowest of the past 15 presidents. But hey, he won despite one of the worst first terms of any president in history. There is something to be said for speaking the language of everyday people and not being sucked into exclusionary language that only plays well inside rarified bubbles.
“Democrats trip over themselves in an attempt to say exactly the right thing,” a rhetoric professor told The Washington Post. “Republicans maybe aren’t so concerned about saying exactly the right thing, so it may appear more authentic to some voters.”
In 2024, Kamala Harris won Arizona Latinos 55-42 while Ruben Gallego won the demographic 61-37—the exact same margin Biden claimed in 2020.
Harris didn’t even say “Latinx,” but she got tagged with the worst parts of so-called woke culture. Gallego avoided the label, and it worked.
And somehow—somehow—Trump gained Latino votes in 2024 despite constantly insulting them. That’s not their fault. The blame lies with our messaging failure.
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As noted in The Washington Post article, most politicians avoid that kind of language, and even those who don’t are evolving, like Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“We have a nation which is now run by a handful of greedy billionaires,” the Vermont lawmaker told a recent Idaho rally. “I used to talk about oligarchy and people say, ‘What is he talking about?’ Everybody knows what I’m talking about tonight.”
But it’s not just politicians who brand a movement: It’s the activists themselves. It’s one thing to use our in-house jargon with each other, but it’s different when we loudly demand that others play along. Now that Latinx is thankfully dead and buried, certain academic Latino activist segments are demanding we use “Latine.” It’s not as dumb as Latinx, but it’s close.
The vast majority of Latinos are perfectly comfortable with the words “Hispanic” and “Latino.” Similarly, nonpolitical Americans (which means most of them) don’t appreciate being told words don’t mean what they are commonly known to mean. They understand “poor,” while hearing people described as “economically disadvantaged” leaves them confused and annoyed. Same with “homeless” versus “unhoused.”
I mean, do we really need to say “a person with lived experience” when referring to someone experiencing hardship? Just say, “This guy’s dealing with some shit,” and no one will think we’re weird robots or aliens. The latter will win you votes; the former will lose them.
Yes, some of these terms seek to avoid stigma and otherwise redress certain injustices embedded in our language, but it’s a distinction that’s lost on most people. The intent is noble, but the outcome is disastrous for those who are supposedly being protected by these linguistic contortions.
This shit’s not hard. Talk like a human—and win more voters.
Related | What Republicans really mean when they say ‘woke’
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