English Lesson: How to Talk about the U.S. Election in English (Phrases you Need to Know)

(brisk music)

- Hello, this is Jack from ToFluency.com.

Now, today we are going to have a conversation in English

giving you an English lesson on the election,

the U.S. election, which is happening in-

- November.

- November, just over a month.

Now, what we're going to do in this video is

give you some of the key terms

so that you can talk about this election in English

and learn some vocabulary, such as left wing,

right wing, polls, polling station,

debates, campaigns, news cycles.

And we're going to just have a discussion on this election

but, more importantly, give you the vocabulary

so that you can talk about it yourself.

Okay, so-

- It's also important to note that,

while we are gonna be talking about the election

and we do have our own opinions

and beliefs about the candidates involved,

that we're gonna try to keep those

out of the conversation as much as possible.

- Yeah, so it's not our opinion

on who we are going to vote for

or who we want to win, but it's more of a discussion

about the election in general.

And you can have a discussion below,

so please leave some comments.

So what we're going to do first,

before we get into a lot of the nitty gritty,

a lot of the details about everything,

is we're just going to lay out the foundation

of the election and talk briefly about what it's all about,

because it can be confusing

and it's different to what I'm used to from the UK.

So, the election is every four years.

- Correct.

- And who are we voting for in this election?

Not which candidate,

but what type of things are we voting for?

- Which roles or positions?

- Yes.

- So obviously there are more elections that happen

in between those four years,

but every four years

is when we have a presidential election.

And so that's gonna be one of the biggest

and definitely one of the most talked about positions

that is up for election this year.

Also we have senators, depending on where you live,

who are up for election, House of Representatives,

and then a lot of other government positions too

at the state and local level.

- There's a lot of research to be done

if you want to know who to vote for.

Because the president, that's the big one,

that's the one everyone talks about.

And I'm sure you know it's Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.

Those are the two main candidates.

There are also third-party candidates.

- This is true.

- But in the U.S.,

it's really overtaken by the Democratic candidate

and the Republican candidate.

And we'll talk more about those two parties later

and what they more or less represent.

But this is the big one, the presidential election,

and people are saying it's the biggest election

of our lifetimes.

- (exhales) Yeah.

- But they say that every time.

- I mean, yes, there is always a lot of hype,

but I think that this time

there is a lot of different opinions

between people who are considering voting Republican

and people who are considering voting Democratic,

or have historically voted that way.

And so it's definitely an election year

that feels more important.

It feels like there's more at stake.

- Yeah, more at stake, which means...

How would you explain that?

- Oh, good question.

So kind of that there's more

that people are deciding on than usual.

- Yeah, or the outcome is going to be more important

and it's gonna change.

So, yeah, there were different kinds of elections,

the big one, the president, but then you also have,

you say it depends where you live, the senators,

the representatives, everyone voting for representatives.

And these two are both, they represent Congress.

Now, we're not gonna go into what that all means

'cause it is complicated.

We're not probably the best at explaining this,

but just know that these are people

who represent everyone who lives in a certain area.

- Oh, but by the way,

Jack actually has had a recent refresher

because you became an American citizen last year.

- Last year, so I know a little bit about it

'cause on the test I had to answer some questions.

- Was the test hard?

- Well, there were 100 questions

and they gave you the 100 questions ahead of time

and the answers that they want to hear,

so if you can memorize it, it makes it a lot easier.

But things like 100 senators.

I think 435 representatives?

- That sounds right.

- Something like that.

But, yeah, there are also local elections.

So there are also state elections.

So you vote for representatives in the state

and governors and treasures

and then there are city elections too.

So there are a lot of things to think about

when you're voting.

Now, one term that I want to bring up is party line,

to vote, how would you say it, to vote by party line?

- Yeah or to vote down the party line.

- Which means that if you are a Democrat,

then you just vote for the Democrats,

no matter what position it is.

And vice-versa, if you're a Republican,

then you might want to do that as well.

But there are also a lot of independent voters

who are undecided and they don't know which to vote for.

And they might vote for some Republicans

and some Democrats, dependent on the candidate.

But let's just talk about the Democratic party

and Republican party 'cause I want to bring up some terms

to describe those two parties.

Firstly, there are some nicknames for the parties.

What are those?

- Well, I can talk about the kind of mascot

or animal that represents those parties.

So the animal that represents the Republican party

is the elephant

and the animal that represents the Democratic party

is the mule.

- The mule.

And Republican is represented by the red color.

Democratic party, blue.

Now we can also talk about left wing

versus right wing here,

which is not always easy to explain.

- It is difficult to.

- But I'm sure you have the same term

in your own native language too,

where policies are or parties or either left wing,

right wing, or somewhere in the middle.

And you have things like far left, far right,

center left, center right, center.

But a good way to explain it is to talk

about some of the important issues

and what those parties represent.

- True, and also another word that we often use

as an adjective for describing that divide

is that people who are more right wing are conservative

and people who are more left wing are liberal.

- Yeah and that term can be a little confusing sometimes,

liberal, because there's also the classic liberal,

who is someone a bit different than the modern liberal.

- Same for conservative.

- Yes. - Yes.

- So issues, whenever there is an election,

there are certain issues that come up

that people want to talk about.

Now, this year, the coronavirus is a big issue,

but we also have other things like the economy,

foreign policy, healthcare, and immigration.

So those are four issues

that both parties want to put their side forward.

So let's just take the economy.

I think one of the big differences between the two parties

is that the Democratic party, when it comes to the economy,

they want to tax the rich and give that money to the poor.

It's very simplistic.

- Or use that taxation to fund public programs.

- Yes and welfare.

And the Democratic party like to talk

about increasing taxes on certain people.

The Republican party,

they talk about no or less taxes, fewer taxes,

and more of a free market economy.

Very simplistic.

There's a lot of nuance and subtlety here,

but that's a good way to describe it.

How would you describe healthcare as well

and the differences between the two parties generally?

- In healthcare, it's hard to completely summarize

because we have a very different opinions

even among, for example, the Democratic party.

If you're more left wing, you are probably wanting some form

of more socialized healthcare.

So that would be kind of the far left by American standards.

And then the center left is in support

of what was called Obamacare,

which made certain rules about insurance companies,

that everyone had to be insured,

and also funded more people to get insurance

in various ways.

And then on the more conservative side

or right wing side, Republican side,

there's a push to repeal, or take away, Obamacare

and have a free healthcare market

without the expansion of socialized healthcare

or the kind of protections and funding from the government

for insurance that came in with Obamacare.

- So this is quite a complicated topic.

We have a lot of words there, things like insurance.

And also it's important to have a good overview

of what the American healthcare system is.

Now, if you're from Europe,

then you won't pay for health care,

in most cases, when you go to the hospital, to the doctors.

This is funded through taxes,

whereas in the U.S. you buy insurance

or you get insurance through your workplace,

through your employer,

and then if something happens to you,

you have to go through a very sometimes complicated process

to make sure that the insurance company pays

for the health care.

And, again, here, it's very complicated in how it works,

but I think Kate summarized it really well.

And a good way to say it is nationalized healthcare

versus privatized healthcare.

And there's a big debate in America about this.

But generally speaking,

that nationalized health care is never really put forward

or introduced as a policy.

It doesn't really have the backing

or people don't put it forward as much.

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Moving on to some fun stuff now.

Election season is crazy.

- Is it?

'Cause this is actually your first election season.

This is the first time you're going to be able to vote

in a presidential election.

You've been in the United States for a past election.

- Yes, that was the Trump versus Clinton election.

- But because you weren't a citizen,

you weren't able to vote.

- No, but last time it was so interesting

because no one thought that Donald Trump had a chance

of winning and little by little,

it became more apparent that maybe he's going to win.

But even on election night,

people thought no way, this is not gonna happen.

- I think a lot of people were shocked,

a lot of people didn't believe the results,

and a lot of people are still kind of confused.

- Yeah, but it's election season again

and there are certain things

that happen around this time of year.

For example, I've written down some things.

You have campaigns, debates, polls, the news cycle, and ads.

So let's just start with debates.

And we're not gonna talk a lot about this,

but there was a debate two nights ago.

Do you think that this would be beneficial

for people who are learning English to watch that debate?

- No. (laughs)

- I agree 'cause the reason is,

well, you can watch,

I think it's a good idea to watch highlights of it,

where somebody has taken certain clips.

But a lot of the time, they were talking over each other.

A lot of the time, both Donald Trump, Joe Biden,

and the moderator, the person who was interviewing them

and asking the questions,

they were all talking at the same time.

And just as a side note, I talk about when learning English,

it's a good idea to find podcasts and conversations

where people don't talk over each other.

- This is true.

It's hard to understand,

it was hard to understand for native English speakers

to really kind of even hear the words.

- No, it was,

just to hear the words and what they're saying.

Now, something interesting.

I saw somebody tweet that in the 19th century,

I think it was Lincoln, their debate,

what they did was one candidate spoke

for 60 minutes without interruption

and then the next one spoke for 90

and then it was something like 40 and then 10.

So there was no interruption,

they just put that argument forward,

and the other person did it.

And I think over the years, it's just become more

where people are interrupting all the time.

- And the last debate format was two-minute responses,

so you only had two minutes-

- You have two minutes-

- To talk about these big policies

about healthcare and justice.

- And so they're going to have more debates

and I think they're going to change the format.

- I heard on the news that the debate commission

was definitely considering a change in format

for the upcoming debate at the end of the month.

- To mute the microphones maybe, which I never do to you.

- Thank you.

- So we also have polls,

where they ask people who they are going to vote for

in certain states, certain cities, or across the U.S.

You'll hear things like

"Biden has a lead over Trump in Arizona"

or "Trump is catching up to Biden in Florida" for example.

But in 2016,

those polls said Hillary was definitely going to win.

And she didn't.

- And another thing that's a little bit different

about American elections

versus elections in other countries is that

even though Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote,

so if every vote is counted, how many more people was it?

- 3 million.

- 3 more people voted for Hillary Clinton,

but because we have something called the Electoral College-

- Very confusing.

- It is a little bit confusing.

So states have different kind of,

is it delegates or seats?

- Delegates or seats, I can't remember.

- We'll look it up and leave it in the bio.

And so even though she had won the popular vote,

a lot of those votes came from urban areas

in more densely populated states,

which had a different number of electoral votes.

And so in the Electoral College,

that was how she had lost the vote.

- It's a good way to explain it that if you win a state,

you get all of those delegates or seats.

They're not seats are they?

Are they delegates?

I can't remember- - Let me see.

- Yeah, have a look up. - I'll look.

- But let's say, I think there are 52 in California,

so if you win California

then you get all of those 52 votes, let's say,

and then if you win Florida, then you get so many as well.

But if you win Maine,

is it two or three because it's a smaller state?

So what they have are things called battleground states,

where they can go either way.

Very important states: Ohio, Florida,

not California, but I remember Florida and Ohio.

Kate's looking up "what is the Electoral College?"

Electors.

So these are the important states to win

and this was very confusing for me at first.

Have you found what they are called?

- Yes.

I think that they are called electors.

- Electors.

Okay.

So that is a little breakdown of that.

We were talking about polls, the news cycle.

The news cycle is dominated by the election.

- Right now it is.

- Everything about the news is, well,

either coronavirus or the election.

- Or also natural disasters.

- Yeah, but you know what I'm saying.

This is dominating.

So the news just talk about the election all the time

and go to what Trump said or Biden said or this person said

and then they bring on talking heads to analyze it.

What is a talking head?

- A talking head is an expert on whatever subject,

but they're called a talking head

because in a news program,

you will often have them cut away to this person,

usually from here on up,

and they were just talking about the topic.

- Yeah and giving their analysis on the topic.

We also have a lot of ads, don't we, at this time.

So what I find astonishing here

is that most of the ads are attack ads.

And how would you explain an attack ad?

- So an attack ad, rather than promoting the candidate

that is paying for the ad

or whatever group is paying for the ad,

it's usually something along the lines

of why the the candidate that they're running against

is not good, is not making the right choice.

So to say so and so didn't do this or did do that.

- In 2016, Joe Biden said this.

And it's the music and the color of the ad as well.

- We could say the tone.

The tone of the ad is very dark.

- And at the end they say

"I am Joe Biden and I approve this message."

What is that about?

Why did they have to say that at the end?

- I guess so that you don't have rogue people

taking out ads.

- Oh, right!

And you know it's from that candidate.

- Or that the candidate's campaign approved that ad.

- Yeah, that makes sense.

- Yeah, we have the new cycle and they also have campaigns.

So what do you call it when they go

to a big crowd of people?

A rally.

- Yeah, so we have rallies.

Also they might have something called a town hall,

which is in smaller towns,

a lot of the meetings of the government

are called town hall meetings.

And so the town hall's that election

or that candidates for election go to

are kind of a recreation of that,

where they might go to a smaller town or city

and then have kind of like a meeting

where they put out their platform.

So that's another great word.

- Platform.

- The platform is what the candidate is running on,

what they're promising to do if and when they're elected.

- Yeah, and so that goes back to the issues.

You have a platform.

You say I'm going to do this with the economy,

I'm going to do this with health care, et cetera.

That's great.

So we have rallies, we have town hall meetings,

and then let's talk about the election itself.

- Can't wait. I'm so excited.

You are too.

It's your first time getting to vote.

- Yeah, well, yeah, it's happening.

It's soon.

- Yes. Very soon.

I think early voting starts,

even though the election is more than a month from now,

just a little bit more than a month

from when we make this conversation,

early voting starts in a couple of weeks.

- You have election day, when you go into the,

do you call them a polling station?

- A polling station or a polling place.

- Okay, so you go into a polling station,

you tell them your name, you get your ballot,

and then you write in your ballot

and then it goes into a machine.

So that's how you can vote, one way,

but there's also early voting.

What does that mean?

- I think that early voting is similar to the other ways.

You don't have an assigned polling place.

So if we wait to vote to election day,

we have to go to a certain place.

And this is more there's different polling locations

that you can go to to vote.

And also there's a third option,

which is one that people are talking about a lot this year,

especially with the virus and with different conditions,

which is the mail-in ballot.

And oftentimes that's the absentee ballot

because if you're not going to be

at your polling place for election day,

you can request these absentee ballots to mail in.

- A good example is people who are in the army

and they're stationed abroad or not in their home state.

So then they can still vote by mail,

but then it's becoming an issue

in this presidential race as well.

Now results come in.

So you vote on election day and, more or less,

the election is decided in most cases that night

or in the early hours of the morning, right?

- Yeah, so they'll say something like,

"we call the election."

- Oh yeah, call the election,

which means by the results that have come in so far

and what we expect to happen,

the election is called in this person's favor.

And again, election night, it's all about the president.

- It's all about the president.

And also people even have watch parties

to watch the election results coming in.

And they'll see as different states count the ballots,

there will reach a tipping point

where a certain person is going to win,

even though they're still counting,

and they call that state and you can kind of see it happen.

And because the United States is in different times zones,

you actually have states

on the west coast calling the election later

than the states on the east coast.

It's exciting in a way.

- So in the UK,

there's always a rush for certain cities to be first.

I think it's Sunderland and New Castle in the UK,

where they always want to be the first one to say

"here are our results."

Do they have that here, do you know?

I don't think so.

I think that what happens a lot

is that in battleground states,

I keep on doing air quotes, but in states where-

- The election.

(both laughing silently)

- In states where the results are very close,

so battleground states,

another word that people will use for them is swing states,

'cause they could swing either way.

- Yeah, so it might swing this way or swing that way.

And then that also swings the election.

- I kinda imagined it more as a pendulum.

- I always see it at the top.

- Yeah, like a little odometer.

- Yeah. - Okay.

- Are they called swing states

because also they can swing the election?

- Possibly, yes, yes.

- Which means that they decide the election.

So a lot of people focus on those, don't they?

- Yeah, so when candidates are campaigning,

they will often go

to those states more often or exclusively.

- Florida is always one of the biggest ones.

And I think a good thing to do as well

is to watch some of the election coverage.

So while it's in the news cycle,

you can watch this live or on YouTube or anywhere else,

just to watch some of the news coverage,

not too much 'cause it makes you go crazy,

but watch some of it in English

and just listen to some of the words they're using.

And then on election night, which,

depending on where you are,

you might be able to watch live.

It'd be great if then you learned the vocabulary here

and then you can understand a lot more

when you're watching it.

What I'll do is I'll leave a lot of these terms

in the description below

because that way you'll be able to read the terms

that we use and just learn more about it.

But I think we've covered quite a lot there.

So, just in summary, we have an election

for the president, for Congress, local elections.

We have two main parties,

the Democratic party, Republican party,

and this is a conservative versus liberal thing.

There are different issues

or the parties and candidates run on tickets.

Things like the economy,

foreign affairs, healthcare, immigration.

Election season dominated by the campaigns that they run,

the ads, polls, the news cycle, and ads.

And then on election night, you go your polling station,

you fill out your ballot, and then results start coming in

and people are very happy the next day,

very sad, or indifferent.

- Yeah, that is a possibility.

I think with this election,

it's much more people are much more invested in the outcome.

- One thing I will say about this election

and just in general, it's very divisive,

which means that people are on one side or the other

and they're very strong about it.

- I think particularly our current president,

Donald Trump, is just proven to be somebody

that people feel strongly about one way or another.

- He divides opinion with a lot of people.

And also the media has played a role in it.

There's a lot of division between everyone at the moment.

But it's going to be interesting.

Oh, one last thing I wanted to talk about!

So they decide the election

but then the current president continues

for four more months, three?

- Until January. - Until January.

And then what's it called when they have that big event

and the new president comes into power?

- That's the inauguration. - Inauguration, that's right.

And that happens in Washington, D.C.

and the president has to swear to uphold the constitution

and then we have a new president.

- Yeah, or the same president again.

- Or the same president again.

Do they do the inauguration the second time

if they win again?

- Yeah, I think so.

Obviously we are experts in this topic.

But yeah, I hope you found this useful.

This might have been a bit more of a difficult lesson

but what I recommend you do is go to the description,

look up those key words and phrases,

read them and then watch this again,

because if you repeat the lesson

and you've read the phrases that we've used,

you will just better understand it.

And then, like we said,

go to the different YouTube channels from CNN,

ABC, Fox News, all the different ones,

and just watch some of the election coverage

and learn some new things.

And also just notice the types of things that they're saying

and the issues that we've discussed here.

And when you're in the description, get my book,

"The Five Step Plan for English Fluency".

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Okay, so thank you so much for being here

and we'll speak to you soon.

Bye bye.

(hypnotic EDM music)