May I offer a point that I have yet to hear in this discussion. The only way anyone can justify the usage of Democrat Party in everyday speech is if they are also willing to convert the Republican Party to the Republic Party. But since federalism and state's rights lies so low on the political landscape that the distinction doesn't carry the same semantic message strength as it once did, no one seems to look at it from that perspective. It is not the fault of the Democratic Party that the noun used to describe their constituents is a vagary of English and lends itself to rationalize the more ideological construction. Just ask a grammarian or a pedant.
That would be Glenn or me, respectively :-).
I'm no grammarian. I can't even find Grammaria on a map. Besides, aren't they still engaged in a nasty civil war over how many official languages to have, and which ones to include?
You've never been to Grammaria? The beaches and the countryside are lovely; the architecture and arts are a bore. A fine place to visit, maybe to call "home," but I wouldn't recommend sole-citizenship.
That said, I was at first taken aback by the astoundingly concerted effort by the Republican Party to re-brand the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party." But I can hardly blame them. The word republican does not retain the same popular meaning of representation of different peoples that it once had; however, democratic still embodies the idea of the voice of the people. The "Republicans" were suffering a loss due to shifting meaning. Don't get me wrong, the "Democratic" Party cowed to this label with the same limp resistance they cow to every Republican re-labeling, but it seems like little of a loss now. After all, each party would say the name of the other as though it were some kind of pejorative, irrespective of the name.
As for what it means, well, I have no idea.
What always bugged me about "Democrat Party" was that the Republicans who insisted on using seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that it sounded pejorative. The closest thing in tone I can think of is, deliberate or not, "Jew" as an adjective.