Atari Democrat

English

Alternative forms

• ATARI Democrat

Etymology

From Atari, a prominent video game system in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Noun

Atari Democrat (plural Atari Democrats)

1. (US politics, informal, historical) A member of the US Democratic Party who emphasizes the role of high tech, in particular information technology, for economic growth.
   • 2004, John B. Judis, Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 132:

     [Paul] Tsongas was, perhaps, the original neoliberal and Atari Democrat. In 1980, he had shocked the audience at an Americans for Democratic Action gathering by urging them to focus on economic growth rather than the redistribution of wealth and by advocating the deregulation of natural gas prices.

   • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 4, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part II. The Neoliberal Order, 1970–2020:

     When Walter Mondale, a traditional New Deal liberal […] lost by a wide margin to Reagan in the presidential election of 1984, the Atari Democrats joined a larger group of frustrated Democratic officials to found the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

See also

• boll weevil
• Reagan Democrat

Further reading

• Atari Democrat on Wikipedia.Wikipedia