897: Not a random college kid

The Democratic President and major leaders use weird words!

Since centrists took over political Twitter on Friday with the Third Way “blacklist” of phrases Democrats should avoid, one common reaction has been that “no one uses these words anyway.”

Here’s New York Times columnist Jane Coaston:

Now, her first point is pretty good … but the problem is that the last decade of Democratic politics has been less like a Deloitte machine and more like a progressive NGO seminar. Normal people felt pressure to talk in weird ways! We hit on this inauthenticity in The Democrats’ Other White Guy Problem.

But the second point downplays the reality of the last decade. Are Democrats sometimes “in a weird position in which not one elected official will use any of these terms” but still get tagged with it?

Sure, there are Sydney Sweeney or Cracker Barrel spasms on social media sometimes, where “someone who is coded Democrat … uses it and it becomes a real problem for Democrats.”

But the bigger problem is that many of the most prominent Democrats actually have used many of the words on the Third Way “Was it something I said?” blacklist!

Here’s President Joe Biden: “It's awful hard to get Latinx vaccinated."

Coaston elaborates on her second point here:

As Ruy Texeira explains in the “Fox News Fallacy,” just because Fox News says it doesn’t mean it is not true or that it does not matter!

Mayor Pete popularized the “they’ll call us socialists anyway” line of thinking back in the 2020 presidential primary:

"It's time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say. It's true that we embrace a far left agenda, they're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists. If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialist.”

However, it really does matter if you call yourself a socialist!

And it matters if the last Democratic president says “Latinx” and has to publicly apologize for not saying “undocumented”. And the prior presidential nominee is, in the year 2025, saying that Republican women are “handmaidens to the patriarchy.”

This is not “a college student” or a “professor who didn’t vote.” It is the last two elected nominees of the party! Along with many candidates, elected officials, and institutions.

There are just 897 days until the presidential primary votes are counted. We can’t forget that the blacklist is around because of the most prominent and influential Democrats, not just random college kids on Twitter.

To help pundits remember, we may put together a Top 10 list of examples … send us your most memorable!

Reason To Believe Dems Are Crazy

Peak Woke is receding, but normal voters remember.

Back when Biden was saying “Latinx”, a group chat of non-political friends would share entertaining absurdity from dating apps.

Example:

So this is the random activist type person who codes as a progressive Democrat.

BUT … this is also basically what formal Democratic institutions were saying, too. It was not just an occasional Biden slip-up.

The House Democrats website - literally the official website of the House Democrats - still has a page up touting a visit from fraudster Robin D’Angelo where the #2 ranking Democrat “illuminated the importance of recognizing that white supremacy and racism are at the foundation of our country” and noted that “Dr. DiAngelo’s work reminds us that systemic racism is actively perpetrated by “nice” and “well-intentioned” people.”

Normal people remember, and the internet remembers too (recall the “Why Planned Parenthood Supports Defunding The Police” is still active).

Democrats - both individual candidates, and a centrist faction serious about winning - cannot just rely on the passage of time to make such faux outrage unbelievable. It will take action.