Dumb it down, for fuck's sake.

[Hekate]

98. You make good points. Personally, I am in an existential crisis right now. I get it, but Bob RedHat did not

The first time I heard the Dem candidates last year say the country was in an existential crisis, I rejoiced that they got it! And said it! — But I’m like you, lotsa college and a broad vocabulary.

Unfortunately, they kept on saying it. “Existential Crisis.” Every day, every speech. It was too much. Too abstruse. Too … dare I say, elitist?

When I talk to people outside my family and small circle of friends, I dial it back, sometimes way back. I don’t think of it as necessarily dumbing it down, just trying to communicate my thoughts without making people’s eyes roll back in their heads.

Back in Dubya’s day, a guy named George Lakoff wrote a book (or that’s when we discovered it) about framing the debate. It’s really quite valuable.
Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff

The GOP has been beating us — and stealing our own base — for decades, and I don’t know why Dems have not caught up. The GOP hasn’t made a secret of their methods, after all. Here’s Newt Gingrich, for starters, 35 years ago:

GOPAC REPUBLICAN HANDOUT/ Gingrich/1990
The title just about says it all: Control. Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, a pamphlet which was sent to Republican candidates running in the 1990 elections.
https://uh.edu/~englin/rephandout.html

More recently, this was posted here by Applegrove— lists of words Trump wants disappeared. Link to NY Times is in the post:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20121741

Sorry if I’m going on too long, but just wanted to say I agree with you.