Think Tank Tells Dems to Ditch 45 'Woke' Words

"Privilege." "Triggering." "Microaggression. "Patriarchy."

Those are just some of the many words Third Way, a center-left think tank, thinks Democrats need to remove from their vocabulary, according to Politico.

The terms put "a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities."

"People simply do not say [these words], yet they hear them from Democrats," Third Way wrote in the memo, shared by Politico.

Too often, Democrats "sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness," the memo reads.

"To please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant," Third Way wrote.

Other words Democrats shouldn't use, according to Third Way, are: violence (as in "environmental violence") ... dialoguing ... othering ... holding space ... body shaming ... subverting norms ... systems of oppression ... cultural appropriation ... Overton window ... existential threat to [the climate, democracy, economy] ... radical transparency ... stakeholders ... the unhoused ... food insecurity ... housing insecurity ... person who immigrated ... birthing person ... cisgender ... deadnaming ... heteronormative... LGBTQIA+ ... BIPOC ... allyship ... incarcerated people ... involuntary confinement.

"We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch," says Matt Bennett, Third Way's executive vice president of public affairs said to Politico. "We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk."

The memo said they aren't trying to police or censor politicians, but that Democrats need to make sure their language "must invite, not repel."

"The Democratic Party brand is toxic across the country at this point with way too many people — enough that there's no way for us to win a governing majority without changing that," Lanae Erickson, Third Way's senior vice president told Politico. "Part of the problem was that we were using words that literally no normal people used — that we were sticking to messages that were so overly scripted that they basically sounded like nothing."

Erickson said Democrats should look to politicians like Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to learn how to communicate effectively.

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