Leftists Try To Change Their Language, But Not Their Policies

Some progressive politicians have awoken to the fact that their far-left language is hurting them with voters, reports Axios. Terms like "birthing people" (women), "unhoused people" (homeless), "criminal justice-impacted individuals" (inmates), and "substance abuse disorder" (addiction) are just plain weird and make officials who use them seem out of touch. 

At a Michigan Democratic fundraising dinner in April, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) urged candidates present to "talk like a normal human." That should be a low bar to clear.

Yet some left-wing activists and the politicians who need their endorsements go on endlessly about "allyship," "people experiencing food insecurity," "Latinx," and "equity."

Beshear is not the only Democrat to make this point. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) recently argued, "'social equity' -- why do we say that? Why don't we say, 'We want you to have an even chance'?" Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel advised his party to "ignore the culture police." Even California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) keeps urging Democrats to become more "culturally normal," advice he could well afford to follow.

In fact, some Democrats have been pointing out the problem ever since their electoral loss. "Some words are just too Ivy League-tested terms," Gallego complained in a May 2025 Washington Post article. The same piece quoted Beshear in harmony, "Democrats have begun to speak like professors and started using advocacy-speak. ... It makes Democrats or candidates using this speech sounding like they're not normal."

In August 2025, the Democratic group Third Way published a memo to "All Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA" to stop using several dozen ridiculous terms. "For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying," they said. "To please the few, we have alienated the many -- especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant."

Thus far, few Democrats have heeded the appeals of their fellow partisans to be normal. Days after the Third Way memo, the Democratic National Committee unanimously approved a resolution in support of DEI.

The bizarre vocabulary has even made its way out of rhetoric and into policy. Last year, the public library in Baton Rouge, La. fired a bi-vocational pastor who refused to use the preferred pronouns of a trans-identifying coworker. In June 2026, the New York legislature enacted a bill that did nothing but replace 22 instances of "father" and "mother" in family law with "gestating parent" or "non-gestating parent."

And the hits keep coming. This year, Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.) introduced a bill to replace the term "ex-felon" in law with "qualified criminal justice-impacted individual." In January, Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced a joint resolution that recognized health systems who helped "birthing individuals" and "birthing people." In May, Governor Newsom announced new apartment space in Los Angeles for "formerly unhoused people."

As far-left candidates associated with the Democratic Socialists of America continue to steamroll their way through Democratic primaries, the party is likely to drift even further to the left.

A handful of self-aware leftists are right to observe the problem with their language. Successful politicians practice making their ideas sound normal and acceptable, not weird and extreme. By letting "'advocacy speak' seep into our Democratic language," said Beshear, politicians on the Left "make it feel like we're talking down to people, like we're talking at them, instead of to them."

But the weird language is a symptom of weird ideas. And politicians like Beshear are proposing a cosmetic change to their agenda, not a systemic one. "The idea behind woke language was, we reduce stigma," he said. "But we don't reduce stigma by changing words. We reduce stigma by changing parts." To put it differently, Beshear will shed the woke words if it means getting to implement the woke ideas behind them.

If anything, the leftist push to revise its language is an exercise in insincerity. The Left wants to change what it says without changing what it means. It recognizes that its words are offensive and off-putting to Americans. Good. It must also recognize that its ideas are just as unacceptable. So, why does it continue to push them? And will Americans be hoodwinked?

Originally published at The Washington Stand