Now THIS Is “Orwellian”: Dictionary.Com Alters The Meaning Of “Court Packing” To Fit The Democratic Party Narrative.


“Court packing” has meant the same thing since the term was devised to describe what President Roosevelt attempted in 1930, when he became frustrated with the conservative Supreme Court’s repeated ly finding his Depression programs unconstitutional. FDR decided to change the structure SCOTUS itself to allow him to create a liberal majority, expanding the number of justices so Roosevelt could appoint political allies. It was the expansion of the Court that was instantly dubbed “packing the court”; the expression had never been used before. “Packing the court” or “court packing” immediately sparked a negative backlash from the public and press: even Roosevelt’s supporters found the plan to be an ominous effort to change the rules when the existing system didn’t produce the results the President desired. FDR was forced to abandon his court-packing plan, and ever since, for 90 years, “court packing” has meant what FDR proposed…increasing the size of the Supreme Court to create an ideological majority suiting the President in power.

But when Democrats announced that their revenge for the President adding consrvatice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court would be to “pack the court,” they declared that “packing the court” was what the Republican had been doing by confirming Trump’s three nominees during his term, so their intention was fair and reasonable “tit for tat.” Coincidentally, conveniently changed its definition of “court packing” to accommodate the Democratic Party’s rationalization sometime during November, sparking this Twitter thread:

Dictionary tweet

Orwellian tactics are totalitarian tactics. Now they are progressive and Democratic Party tactics. We have already seen Miriam Webster do this, recasting the language to fit progressive narratives. The manipulation of language compliments the manipulation of information engineered by the mainstream media and the manipulation of public discourse by social media platforms.

22 thoughts on “Now THIS Is “Orwellian”: Dictionary.Com Alters The Meaning Of “Court Packing” To Fit The Democratic Party Narrative.

  1. I still go to Merriam-Webster – can’t recall the last time I used Dictionary dot com. Oh, yeah, now I remember. That WAS the last time!

    M-W has its own way of “evolving,” of course. Evolution is their orientation, not their preference.

    • M-W re-defined sexual preference to be an offensive term for the purpose of backing Sen Hirono’s attack on ACB back in Octoboer.

  2. So now is bastardizing the definition of words on their site to fit the preferred narrative of the political left too; big fucking surprise, the political left has been doing this kind of shit for a while now. Sometimes this bastardization is subtle and sometimes it’s not.

    Sure, they’re willing to literally bastardize current definitions for political purposes but not add new definitions…

    Pisoplysiphobia: ( fē’-sō-fē-lē-sē-fō-bē-ə) is the fear of drinking your own backwash at the bottom of your glass. The word is derived from the English spelling of the spoken Greek words for back (píso) and wash (plýsi).

    When you look at the last inch of fluid in your glass and you gag just thinking about drinking it; that’s backwash phobia or Pisoplysiphobia.


    Fetusphobia: is the fear of a living human fetus.

    Fetusphobia drives people to kill unborn living human beings.


    Alki-Bopper: Short/slang for an alcoholic bopper.

    Alki-Bopper is a person that has one hand on a bottle of booze inebriating themself and the other hand in their pants pleasing themself (bopping).


    Fascistpocrisy: employing the immoral tactics of fascists while hypocritically calling others fascists.

    The 21st century activists that self identify as ANTIFA are openly engaging in Fascistpocrisy.

  3. Do I have to play ‘Devil’s Advocate’ here? Throughout September/October, the narrative was “If Donald Trump fills RBG’s seat, then Joe Biden must pack the court!”

    So, how would the prior definition that directly applied to one prior president have any meaning on the task set by the liberal populace on their candidate?

    I’m reading the new addition to the term, how is this incorrect? They’re acknowledging that Court Packing is a manipulation of numbers and composition for political advantage. What am I missing?

    (I recently turned 40, so my brain may have reached the end of its useful life….so keep that in mind when choosing to respond with complex ideas and big words.)

    • The prior meaning, and how I always understood it, meant “adding seats to the Supreme Curt so the President could fill them with political allies.” The new definition is wildly broad, and would apply to every President within memory. EVERY President seeks to alter the composition of the Court to one more accommodating to his party’s philosophy. If that’s all the term meant, why was Schumer’s threat to pack the court” a threat? He knew exactly what it meant and what he meant by using it: “If the GOP seats bryant, we”ll increase the number of justices on the curt to let our POTUS appoint five progressive justices–that is, exactly, what FDR wanted to do.

      Not, “Oh yeah? Well, if the GOP confirms conservative justices when it has the votes and there’s a vacancy, we’ll confirm progressive justices when WE have the votes and there’s a vacancy”!

      • Right, so really it’s the word “Composition” that’s at issue here, right? It’s obvious a new definition was needed because it was a historical term that’s gained a broad meaning, so we’re not upset that they added a defined meaning, correct? It’s just “composition”.

        I guess I was thinking there was more to “composition” than picking replacements; but indeed, I am struggling to define what that would be, other than restructuring, redistricting, etc.

        • Wait—you don’t really mean a new definition was needed, so you? To me, this is like defining “immigrant” as “illegal immigrant.” The definitions we had were not only clear, they were sufficient. Court packing is an unethical act championed by a President who doesn’t like how the system works. Changing the composition of the Court ideologically to something closer to what the President believes is literally what every President has tried to do. Merging the two into one definition is intentional obsfuscation.

          • The original “definition” if you could call it that, was an example. Hardly a “definition”. The term was defined by a single instance, so if Biden actually expanded the Supreme Court with 10 new positions, would it be “court packing” under the prior definition? I don’t see how Biden’s changes could be defined as “an unsuccessful attempt by President Franklin D Roosevelt….” (Need I go further?)

            • Yes. The term came into existence to describe what FDR wanted to do. It had no other definition before or since. That’s all it referred to, and does referred to. When the Democrats used the term as a threta, they meant exactly what the original definition meant.

            • Basically, if your argument is that “court packing” can only ever be referred to 1 instance in history of FDR attempting to expand the supreme court, then if someone else tries to do something similar, we can’t call it court packing because that person is not FDR and the year is not 1937. If you think it can be applied in other circumstances (either more recent, in the present, or in the future), then the definition, as it existed on Nov 1st, was inadequate.

              • Who would be confused? “This is exactly what FDR attempted in 1930” is implicit. Anyone literate knew exactly what was meant by the term. If you are arguing that the definition should have been generalized long ago to, “an attempt to control the Supreme Court by increasing the number of seats on it, as FDR infamously attempted in 1930”, I can’t disagree. If the definition of “to Bork” said “what Senate Democrats did when they trashed eminently qualified Robert Bork and denied him a seat on the Supreme Court for purely partisan reason,” wouldn’t that be sufficient?

    • Tim, I think it’s pretty simple. FDR tried to pack the court with liberal justices by ADDING MORE JUSTICES. Trump simply filled open seats with his, not Chuck Schumer’s or Thomas Friedman’s picks. The Democratic response was to regain dominance in the Court BY ADDING MORE SEATS and filling them with suitably Democratic oriented justices.

      PS: At forty, you’re just entering your prime. Enjoy it.

      • FDR didn’t have to pack the court. The threat alone was enough to change the court’s jurisprudence. I have wondered what would have happened had he he made a serious to expand the court. Could he have raised enough popular support to force the congress to go along?

    • What, you didn’t hear about the new politically correct rules for poker?

      1. Gauge the color, gender, and political orientation of the players.

      2. Remove the aces, face cards, and tens from the deck. Set them aside in a separate stack.

      3. Shuffle and cut the remaining cards 3 times, then deal each player five cards.

      4. Shuffle and cut the set aside stack 3 times, then deal three cards more from that stack to any female player, player of color, or liberal player.

      5. Straights are forbidden.

      How about politically correct chess?

      1. Remove all white pieces from the board.

      2. Black wins.

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