this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024

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Against Astroturfing and Social Media Manipulation

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"Democrat" as an adjective from Lemmy accounts (mbin.grits.dev)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/astroturfing

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There are 229 accounts in Lemmy that have used the phrase “Democratic Party” more than once in the last 6 months or so.
There are 188 that have used the phrase “Republican Party” more than once.
There are 25 that have used the phrase “Democrat Party” more than once

Having "Democrat Party" (or similar constructions like "Democrat voters") be unusual on Lemmy makes perfect sense. It's something I pretty much never hear outside of conservative circles. It always sounds really weird to me and I don’t think it would ever occur to me to use it. It’s not surprising that it’s so rare on Lemmy.

What is unusual is that there's quite a bit of overlap between accounts that use this unusual phrasing that's pretty much only seen from conservatives, and accounts that claim to be opposing the Democrats from the left -- giving reasons and arguments why Lemmy users should not vote for the Democrats, because they are not doing enough to advance a leftist agenda (or, that voting is not worthwhile, or similar things.)

The conclusion is left for the reader. I am, honestly, a little bit on the fence about listing the accounts or going into the data. I decided it would be drama-inducing to list accounts specifically; honestly, it's useful and informative detail, but it would create some heat without light, probably, and there's no reason to think that 100% of the accounts that are part of the overlap are what the obvious conclusion would be that a lot of them are. I'm going to simply state the conclusion, and anyone who wants to replicate the data for themselves is welcome to do so.

I did ask two of the accounts that were part of the overlap what was up with it, and neither of them answered me, although a third party did chime in with this explanation:

I've had various liberals tell me Democrat was a form of dog whistle or sign I'm a right winger. One person started to dig into my mutual aid info trying to figure out if I was a Russian bot because I said "Democrat" instead of Democratic. I've tried to Democratic as a noun, and it felt grammatically incorrect. "I'm running as a Democatic." "The current majority in the house is with the Democratics."

Personally I think "Democrat" works for both candidate, party, and voter. "Biden is the Democrat's Nominee" vs "Biden is the Democratic nominee".

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wait, isn't "Democrat" used for a single person who aligns with democratic views, and "democratic" used to describe concepts that align with that idea?

Like how "Democratic Party" makes sense; but as in the example "I'm running as a Democratic" does not make sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yes, you are 100% correct. "Democrat" is a noun. "Democratic" is an adjective. Using "Democrat" as an adjective started up as a conservative slur some years back, and using "Democratic" as a noun is never something that anyone with a functioning brain has ever done to my knowledge in the history of time.

I honestly thought they were maybe not a native speaker or just really confused or something, and so gave this detailed explanation after they told me the word salad about "I'm running as a Democratic," and then only after that was when I looked at their history and saw all this astroturf-looking stuff and went oh, I see, I get it, they're just sort of derailing the whole conversation away from the original astroturf discussion with nonsense (and successfully apparently.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can't speak for anyone else, nor would I pretend to, but I pretty much exclusively use "democrat" as both a noun and an adjective, for two reasons that have nothing at all to do with my political views (which, for record, are anarchist ideally and left libertarian practically).

First and by far most importantly, "democratic" is the adjective form of "democracy," so IMO it's confusing to also use it as the adjective form of "democrat." On the other hand, "democrat" as the adjective form as well as the noun form, while it does bother some people for reasons that entirely elude me, is clear. There can be no confusion, when I use "democrat" as an adjective, that I'm referring to the political party rather than the system of government.

And second, "republican" is already, in its usage to refer to the party, a dual-use term - serving as either noun or adjective, and non-controversially. My (arguably compulsive) preference for clarity and consistency is satisfied by using "democrat" the same way.

And on a side note - every time I run across this idea, I'm reminded of an old guy I knew years ago who would buy laughably amateurish paintings at yard sales and second hand stores, then try to convince other people that they were actually Rembrandts, because look! See? Right there in that cloud! That's an R! For Rembrandt!"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My (arguably compulsive) preference for clarity and consistency is satisfied by using "democrat" the same way.

Speaking as a very logic person, I couldn’t agree more with how much sensible this makes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That was actually a pretty witty attempt at a counter.

Shame that it didn't actually correspond with the quoted bit, so ended up falling flat, but still - nice try.

Protip if you ever find yourself in this situation again - the only way that you can hope to illustrate the purported failings of claimed logic through analogy is if the subsituted terms have the same relationship to each other and the context as the original terms did and the underlying structure of the analogy matches that of the original. If you use terms with a different interrelationship and/or follow a different logic in the construction of your analogy, then you lose the relationship between the original and the analogy, so the illogic of the analogy is just left out there hanging on its own, having failed to demonstrate anything about the original.

Still though - it was promising. Keep trying and you might just get the hang of it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah. If later on I can think some adjectives I could use as nouns or vice versa, to make the point, I’ll keep all that stuff in mind.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Now that was a great response, since its earnest simplicity left me (deservedly) feeling like an asshole. Well done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do those counts include eg. somebody saying "Democrats" instead of "Democratic party"?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Purely the exact phrases, case insensitive. "Democrats" would not be involved in any of the counts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Hmm, can you really make any deductions from that data?

Does the number of people using the full phrase for either party correlate well with the number who don't? Is the correlation for eg people who use "democratic party" vs "democrats" and "republican party" vs "Republicans" even the same (edit: I know you wouldn't have the numbers, just thinking out loud here)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

All four of the things you listed are fine, and yes there would be no particular interest. “Democrat party” is different from all four.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

FWIW I thought the party's name was "Democrat Party" until I looked it up just now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Points one and three seem to contradict each other. Is that what you intended to say?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There are two additional letters at the end, on the first point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

LoL, that's why I'm not a professional editor. You are correct, friend.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

All good

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

I think that the Democratic Party is hated both from the left and the right, and calling them the Democrat Party makes some sense if you don't view them as aligning with real democracy. Kind of like when one calls pro-life people "pro-forced-pregnancy" or "anti-abortion".

Like there's probably plenty of astroturfing out there, but I don't think this is a strong sign a particular account is astroturf. Since we are all exposed to everyone's discourse, that way of referring to Democrats could fairly easily hop between different groups that don't like Democrats. Like I wouldn't be surprised if "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" makes its way to the right somehow just because it's anti-liberal, even though it originates from the left.

Despite its origin on the right, I think that type of phrasing makes a bit more sense coming from the left than the right, because the right does not actually care at all about democracy, except when they equate it with capitalism, and democracy is like the left's whole deal.