Ep 969: Whatever Happened To 'The American People'?

The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal

Driftglass and Blue Gal

News Commentary, Progressive, Liberal, Midterms, Resistance, Indivisible, Government, Democrat, Presidential, Debate, News, Election, Campaign, Politics

4.8 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 969 explores how politicians and media use vague phrases like "the American people," "the voters," and "the public" without anyone agreeing on what these terms actually mean. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace these polyfunctional words through American history, from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Nixon's "silent majority" and today's political battles over who gets to speak for the nation. They examine how these phrases do political work rather than descriptive work, often excl...

Transcript

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0:00.0	You can listen to the professional left wherever you get your podcasts on Netroots Radio or at our
0:05.5	website, pro-leftpod.com, where you can also contribute to this podcast. There's a PayPal button
0:11.3	on our website, or you can mail us a letter and or contribution at P.O. Box 913, Springfield, Illinois,
0:18.5	62791. This is the podcast for the week of February 13th,
0:23.1	2006.
0:24.5	It's not safe for work.
0:26.4	Recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance,
0:28.8	where we're not going to sit here
0:30.4	while you badmouthed the United States of America.
0:33.8	It's the professional left with Drift Glass and Blue Gal.
0:42.9	Music It's the Professional Left with Drift Glass and Blue Gal. Okay.
0:43.8	We're going to start off today with a bang.
0:46.5	It's Language Lesson Day here at the Professional Left, and we're going to talk about versatile words, words that have lots of different meanings packed into one little
0:55.5	packet of consonants and vowels. For example, the most versatile word in the English language
1:02.4	is not the one we're going to be focusing on, but it's a good example, and I think we all know
1:08.6	what that word is. Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today is the word fuck.
1:16.6	Out of all of the English words that begin with a letter F,
1:19.6	fuck is the only word that is referred to as the F word.
1:23.6	It's the one magical word just by its sound can describe pain, pleasure, hate, and love.
1:31.9	Fuck, as most words in the English language, is derived from German, the word frichen, which means
1:37.9	to strike. In English, fuck falls into many grammatical categories. As a transitive verb, for instance, John fucked Shirley.
1:47.8	As an intransitive verb, Shirley fucks. Its meaning's not always sexual. It can be used as an
	...

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