POLITICAL VOCABULARY 🇺🇸 Common Words & Phrases You Should Know

This is a nonpartisan lesson to help you learn  political words and phrases that you need to know.

And let's start with the word nonpartisan.

Welcome back to JForrest English.

Of course, I'm Jennifer.

Now let's get started.

Nonpartisan is an adjective that means not a  

member or connected within  a group or political party.

The Community Center is hosting a  nonpartisan forum to discuss local issues,  

so this forum is not related  to a specific political party.

The opposite of that is partisan.

This is also an adjective, and it's strongly  supporting a person, principal or political party.

The audience was very partisan and  refused to listen to her speech.

And that's why I said this  lesson is nonpartisan because  

it's for everyone regardless of political beliefs.

So if you're excited to learn this vocabulary,  put let's go, put let's go in the comments.

And don't worry about taking notes because  I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF.

You can find the link in the description.

So we have nonpartisan, partisan  and there's also bipartisan.

Have you heard this before?

This is an adjective, and it supports by  or connected to two political parties.

And that's the word by which represents 2.

The government released a  bipartisan public health campaign.

So this campaign was supported by or  connected to two political parties.

Now, technically try partisan, which means three,  

or quadri partisan, which means  four, and you can keep going.

Technically those terms exist,  but they're not widely used,  

at least in North America, our long  standing nonpartisan tradition.

Is to make.

Decisions objectively, based only  on the best available evidence.

There are concerns that highly partisan volunteers  could try to intimidate voters this year.

But.

This is a bipartisan bill that  authorizes more than $7 billion  

so that initiatives like Feed the  Future endure well into the future.

Now let's quickly review the  politics because I hear students  

using this word incorrectly because of  the grammar of the sentence structure.

Politics is a noun.

This means the activities of government,  but it also means an area of study.

For example, Maria is studying politics.

The area of study.

She's studying politics at university.

Or perhaps you're at the dinner  table and someone could say let's  

not discuss politics, the  activities of government.

Let's not discuss politics at dinner.

Now, don't confuse us with the word  political, which is an adjective.

This means relating to politics, but  it also means interested in politics.

And did you notice that the noun has?

That's on it.

If you follow my channel and if you're  new here, make sure you subscribe.

If you follow my channel, you'll  know that I use political articles,  

news articles related to the study of  politics to teach you my students English.

But the lessons are non partisan.

The focus of the lesson is teaching  you vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation.

It's not to support or comment  on a political party or interest.

So remember, you can say Jasper's  very political as the adjective,  

or you can say Jasper's interested  in politics, the study the noun.

And of course you already know politician.

This is a noun and this is a member of  a government or lawmaking organization.

Amit is a politician.

Don't forget that article because this is a  job title and we use articles with job titles.

Ahmed is a politician, but most of  his life he wasn't very political.

I wrote about politics, economics,  and corporate affairs, and I could  

have chosen to specialize in any of those fields.

I wasn't really political, I  was just a French horn player.

One newspaper from the early  1900s quoted a politician who  

said the Modi's had always been  loyal to the British Empire.

Now let's talk about a constituency.

This is a noun and it's a body  of voters in a specific area.

And these voters, they elect a representative.

But remember this word constituency, it  refers to the whole body as one unit.

The politician worked hard to address  the concerns of his constituency.

You could also say his constituents.

So notice we have constituent  or the plural form constituents.

This is a noun and it is simply referring to all  voter or voters in the plural in a specific area.

So I could say I'm one of your  constituents, I'm one of the people  

who can vote for you if I choose because  I'm in this specific geographical area.

Or a politician could say, my constituents  will be pleased with this new initiative,  

the constituency that he  or she was running for an.

Office to represent Now in states where judges  are popularly elected, they have constituents.

Now let's review some common vocabulary,  

and I want you to pay pay attention  to the sentence structure.

She voted in an election.

So notice you vote in and  then an election, an election.

That's the noun form she voted for.

Amen.

So you vote for a person, you vote in an election.

And of course the verb is vote.

So you conjugate that based on your  subject, Comet is running for mayor.

Notice you can run for a political  position, in this case mayor.

You don't need an article here in front of  mayor because mayor is considered a proper noun.

You could also say Ahmed is a candidate for mayor  or Ahmed is campaigning for the position of mayor.

You could add the position  of but you don't need to.

So you could just say Ahmed  is campaigning for mayor.

So nearly a third of these students  voted in an election, but they all,  

just for some reason, voted for the war.

And he starts running for mayor and getting  and doing really, really well in the polls.

It is just as illegal to make a  foreign donation to a candidate  

for mayor as it or a sheriff  as it is for the presidency.

So let's say it's election night and all of the  

constituents voted for their party  of choice, their person of choice.

And guess what?

Ahmed won the election and  it was a landslide victory.

This means that Ahmed won by a large margin.

So the margin means the number  of votes for or against.

In this case, a large margin could be 70% of the  votes were for Ahmed and 30% were against him.

You could also say a clear margin.

Using that word clear, you could  say it was a clear cut victory.

Nobody can say that the results aren't conclusive.

7030, that's conclusive.

Ahmed won.

You could say it was an underdog victory.

This means that nobody expected Ahmed to win.

He was the underdog.

You could also say it was an upset.

An upset.

This means that everyone  expected someone else to win.

It was an upset.

But now let's say that Ahmed lost the election.

We could also say it was an upset,  

but in this case everyone expected  Ahmed to win, but he didn't.

We could say it was a narrow defeat,  or you could say it was a close call.

This means that Ahmed lost, but by a small margin.

So maybe it was 51 to 49.

That would be the smallest margin possible.

You could say it was a crushing defeat.

This means Ahmed lost by a large margin.

So 70% people didn't vote for Ahmed, only 30% did.

It was a crushing defeat.

Keep in mind that you can use this  vocabulary about winning and losing  

for sports recruitment or any competition.

Germany's leading far right  party suffered a narrow defeat  

in regional elections in one of its strongholds.

Well, it was a close call.

I mean, things almost didn't workout.

King Ben Haddad the first attacks from around.

Damascus What today?

Would be known as Syria, forcing the  north to retreat in crushing defeat.

Now let's talk about to impeach  a politician's nightmare.

This is a verb, and it means to  formally accuse a public official  

of a serious crime in connection with their job.

Did you know that in history, three  US presidents have been impeached?

This means three US presidents have been accused  of a serious crime related to their position.

Can you name one out of the three?

Well if you follow my learn English  with the news lessons, I'm sure you can.

So put one of those names in the comments.

So three have been impeached accused, but 0  presidents have been forced to leave office.

You could also say that 0 presidents have  

been removed from their position  as a result of the impeachment.

Now notice here impeachment is the noun form.

It's talking about the accusation as a noun.

If a politician is forced to leave office or  removed from their position, this means fired.

But we only use that term  in non political positions.

So in a non political position  you would say Yevgenya was fired.

She's an employee and the  company or the boss fired her.

But for political positions, you can say removed  from office or forced to leave their position.

So three US presidents have been impeached,  0 have been forced to leave office.

But did you know that former President  Richard Nixon, he stepped down,  

he resigned before he was officially  impeached for a non political position.

You would use the word quit or you can  use resigned but quit is more common.

Yevgenya quit 3 presidents have been impeached.

Andrew Johnson.

Bill.

Clinton and Donald Trump Trump is likely  to be the first to be impeached twice.

Whether they're removed from their position  or if they're otherwise disciplined due  

to concerns about harassment, bullying,  retaliation or hostile working conditions.

Well, anyway, it got a lot better and by the  time I stepped down, we had the Internet.

But while running, you know, at  high speed, it was marvelous.

I mean, we were awash in cash.

I just mentioned former President Richard Nixon.

Let's review the word incumbent.

This is a noun and it's the current  holder of a political office or position.

The incumbent president.

The current president isn't  running for re election.

That's a story I did a learn English with  the news on, so make sure you watch it.

So subscribe if you haven't already.

Now let's review to lobby.

This is a verb and is to try to influence  a politician or public official.

The company spent millions on lobbying efforts,  so in this case it's being used as an adjective.

It describes the efforts the incumbent  president, the current president,  

faced impeachment accusations of a serious crime.

Here it's the noun form for  secretly meeting with lobbyists.

So right here, the word is a noun.

A lobbyist is someone who lobbies.

How about this word?

Filibuster.

Filibuster.

Isn't that fun to say?

Filibuster.

Say it out loud.

Filibuster.

Do you know what this is?

Well, it's both a verb and a noun,  

and it's a long speech that someone makes to  delay or prevent a new law from being made.

She filibustered the bill.

So here it's a verb, and it's in the  past simple form, the filibuster.

So here it's a noun.

The filibuster lasted for over 10 hours.

Remember a long speech?

Filibuster.

And yes, it's a filibuster.

The filibuster is on.

Now you have all the vocabulary that you  need to feel confident discussing politics.

Do you want me to keep  teaching you political terms?

If you do, then put filibuster.

Put filibuster, filibuster in the chat.

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You can click here to download or  look for the link in the description.

And here's one of the nonpartisan  Learn English with the News lessons,  

so make sure you watch it right now.