§57 —
On radical
Democrat
RADICAL
The second job. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the slang sense of "radical" to "1970s surfer slang meaning 'at the limits of control,'" in general American youth slang "by 1983" — excellent, first-rate, the best available 1. In that sense a radical left is a left that is, per the dictionary, totally awesome.
Read the two quotes in the 1983 edition. "The radical left came over, they looked and they said, that's beautiful" becomes a sentence in which the best people in the room admired the thing. "The radical left Democrats handed us" a disaster becomes a sentence in which excellent Democrats handed something over. The label is meant as a warning. Anyone who learned the word on a beach hears the other thing. Gnarly.
Sources
Republican
THE RADICAL LEFT
It is one of his steadiest labels, and it is in daily use. At a rally in Myrtle Beach on August 21: "The radical left Democrats handed us a complete and total affordability and security disaster" 1. At a Rose Garden dinner for Republican lawmakers on September 2: "the radical left came over, they looked and they said, that's beautiful" 2.
The case for the label is the case for any political shorthand: a party that believes its opponents have moved far from the center names the distance, and the name travels. It does what a slogan is for. It sorts the room in a word. The trouble is the word had a second job, and the second job is on the other side.
Sources
- "The radical left Democrats handed us a complete and total affordability and security disaster" — rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 21 August 2026 — Roll Call / Factba.se ↑
- "The radical left came over, they looked and they said, that's beautiful" — Rose Garden dinner for GOP lawmakers, 2 September 2026 — Roll Call / Factba.se ↑
“My cousin surfed in San Diego in the seventies, and he'd say "radical" about a wave, and it meant the wave was the best thing he'd ever seen. The dictionary backs him up — surfer slang from the 1970s, "at the limits of control," and American kids had it by 1983. So I read the president's speeches that way, just to see. August: "The radical left Democrats handed us a complete and total affordability and security disaster." September: "the radical left came over, they looked and they said, that's beautiful." Sorry, I'll let you go. In 1983, which side of that sentence would have taken it as a compliment?”— Lou
“Radical left? Dude. Totally. In 1983, radical meant excellent — the surfers had it first, "at the limits of control," and then every kid in a Camaro. So when he says "the radical left came over, they looked and they said, that's beautiful," I'm hearing a review. Five stars, would paddle out again. He keeps calling them the coolest people in the country, and no one's told him.”
“The president uses "radical" in its serious political sense, not the surfing sense, and if the surfing sense happens to make his opponents sound excellent, that's a problem for the surfers, who should never have been allowed near the language.”