There's a trend toward writers and commentators reframing the Democratic Party as the "Democrat" Party.  It's seen often in right-of-center commentary, particularly on the internet.  At AT we see it in potential copy all the time.  (I saw it in a submission just yesterday.) The argument goes that the party is, in fact, not "democratic" at all, so it's wrong to allow Democrats to degrade the term by making claim to it.  There's certainly something to that. But here's the thing: back around 2006, the term "liberal" became radioactive.  This was a culmination decades in the making.  Efforts to turn the word "liberal" into a curse had been carried out by a small number of conservative columnists for many years, with middling success.  It was probably the rise of the internet, with the entrance of real, unvarnished opinion onto the national stage, that...(Read Full Post)