Political Vocabulary and Expressions in American English - Part 2

Hi ChatterFoxes and welcome to washington DC washington DC is the capital of the united states and also the home to ChatterFox so we're super excited to show you a very important building in washington DC which is the united states capitol so as you can see behind me this is the United States Capitol the United States Capitol is where the Congress meets to vote on important laws so each of the members of Congress have an office in a building that's behind the Capitol but when they meet together

to vote on important legislation they do it in this building right here the United States Capitol since we're at the United States Capitol in this video you're going to be learning some important American expressions about politics starting with the GOP GOP is the abbreviation of Grand Old Party which is another name for the Republican Party the GOP next left wing left wing refers to liberal politics liberal meaning progressive so the left wing party or the left wing politics would be the Democr

ats in this country next checks and balances checks and balances refer to the three branches of the United States government the United States government has an executive branch which is the president it has a legislative branch which is the Congress the the House of Representatives and the Senate which of course meet in this building here and the judicial branch which is the Supreme Court and checks and balances furs to the balance of power between these three branches of the government in othe

r words not one single branch of government has all the power the president doesn't have all the power the Congress doesn't have all the power and the courts don't have all the power there's checks and balances between all three of the branches witch hunts witch hunt so a witch hunt refers back to many centuries ago when people were killing members of their community because they thought they were witches or at least they were accused of being witches so in today's modern times when we say witch

hunt it refers to trying to find someone to blame for something so if someone's on a witch hunt they may be saying that that person did something wrong and that person did something wrong and that person did something wrong just to make sure that no one is pointing their finger at themselves to say that they did something wrong so a witch hunt is looking for people to blame witch hunt and when you say the word hunt it has a stop T on the end so it's not hunt its hunting you don't really hear th

e true T sound at the end of hunt witch hunt witch hunt photo op photo op is a shortened version of the term photo opportunity a photo opportunity is something like what I'm taking advantage of right now the opportunity to take a great photo somewhere so right now I'm on the National Mall I'm in front of the Capitol building this is a great opportunity for a picture or of course a video about American political expressions but the term photo op is very important because politicians to photo ops

all the time for example a politician may want to go to volunteer in a hospital or a soup kitchen or do whatever other thing that makes them look like a good person and that's called a photo op because they're going to that place so that they can have their picture taken there to make it look like they're doing something good photo op photo op so when you say the word photo make sure to use a flap T which sounds like a D sound photo photo op photo op big brother big brother some people say that

big brother is always watching you and what this term means that someone either the government or some corporation or someone is always watching what you do and here in Washington DC that actually may be true because in Washington DC there's a ton of security and police everywhere so you could say that in Washington DC big brother is always watching you and big brother of course is the government when you say big brother there's a /th/ sound in bro/th/er so it's not broder it's brother with a se

nator do you have trouble making /th/ sound be sure to follow ChatterFox because we have a lot of videos that will explain how to make all of the sounds of American English including the the 2 /th/ sounds and the last term is Bi-partisan Bi-partisan refers to something that involves both parties or where both parties are working together the Democrats and the Republicans because of course those are really only two parties that have any power in the United States so when you say something is Bi-p

artisan means that two parties are working together bi-partisan people say this word in a couple of different ways one of them is bipartisan with a sound bipartisan and some people make a sound bipartisan so whichever way feels more comfortable for you will be a great way to pronounce it bipartisan with us or bipartisan with a Senate so now that we've learned this important term bipartisan I have a question for you some people think that in the United States all of the fighting between the two p

arties the Democrats and the Republicans is all just a big show and that most of the legislation that's passed is actually bi-partisan because all of the legislators are really working together other people think that nothing is bipartisan and that the two parties cannot work together because they disagree on so many things I want to know what you think what's your opinion tell us in the comments section below can't wait to hear from you you ChatterFox is proud to be located in Washington DC USA

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