Moderate Dems neither defend nor inspire

Manhattan: The Democratic Party needs to chill out. They allowed the Republicans to define them for more than 40 years, and they’re allowing the miscreant President Trump and his MAGA cultists to divide them. Haven’t they learned from 40 years of Republican slurs — radical liberal leftists, etc. — how it hobbled their party?

The differences between the progressives and democratic socialists and the moderates are small and have little to do with ideology. In the best traditions of FDR and LBJ, all Democrats essentially want the same things: a fairer tax code, everyone to be covered by health insurance, and human rights to be enjoyed by all — Blacks, women, LGBTQ citizens. They want clean air and water, affordable housing, fair wages, good education for their children and limits on gun ownership.

Moderates and centrists like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are afraid of their own shadows. They bend over backward to get everyone to like them. They’ve controlled the Democratic Party for a long time, and if the party is viewed as weak, the moderates have themselves to blame. They rarely use their power to push the right wing to get what they know is right. They compromise to the point of watering down any achievements they get when they have a majority. As long as they allow others to define them without setting them straight, they’ll be perceived as weak.

Manhattan: The problem that centrist Democrats have in communicating with their constituents and independents is they decided to be like the GOP. Voicer Robert W. Lobenstein contends that that can be their........

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