While Democrats were spending their political energies enforcing gender-neutral vocabulary to please their progressive base, Republicans were executing a methodical and, frankly, brilliant strategy to solidify their base.

Even though the GOP grip on power should be waning steadily, the party is instead fighting well above its weight. Democrats are helping them every step of the way.

What will it take to shake Democrats into action? The 2000 presidential election, won by Democrats but handed to Republican George W. Bush by a narrow Supreme Court ruling, had no lasting impact on Democratic Party mobilization. The rise of racist, obstructionist right-wing politics after President Barack Obama took office still did little to advance the Democrats’ bigger agenda.

Not even the election of Donald Trump in 2016 — with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton — was enough to wake up the left. Democrats’ weak control of Congress after the 2020 election has yielded only stalemate, rendering Joe Biden’s presidential victory moot. Even the Capitol insurrection seems not to have moved the political needle in Democrats’ favor.

The progressive left is doubling down on the small stuff, and therein lies the problem.

They have muddled the English language with endless debate over which politically correct words to use — “homeless” or “unhoused”? — to the point that people now feel obligated to list pronoun preferences on their email signatures. Never mind the confusion of referring to a single individual as “they,” the relentless focus on Orwellian properspeak is alienating moderates.

Hispanic voters are being repelled by progressive insistence on the gender-neutral term “Latinx.” According to a 2021 Gallup poll, only 4% of Hispanic Americans preferred usage of “Latinx.”

Democrats need to ask themselves what’s really important for voters. Do Americans really want to be told how to speak? Do moderates want to be badgered on social and political correctness?