The Memo: Left’s winning streak extends in Colorado despite Trump, centrist attacks

The leftist tide coursing through Democratic politics reached Colorado on Tuesday, washing away longtime Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and putting paid to the gubernatorial hopes of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).

In the aftermath, Democrats are asking urgent questions about the direction their party ought to take. 

Voices on the left say insurgent candidates are meeting a popular appetite for more progressive policies, greater antipathy toward corporate interests, stronger condemnation of Israel’s actions, and more aggressive opposition to President Trump. According to this worldview, Democratic leaders in Washington have been timid and ineffectual.

Centrist skeptics jab back that the left — especially candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — are paving a path to electoral ruin, taking positions that turn off moderates even as they win primaries in deep-blue areas. They also fear the left is handing electoral ammunition to Republicans.

Trump is among those on the right seeking to wring political advantage from the surging left. Speaking on Wednesday in North Dakota, he talked about preserving the U.S.’s exceptional nature, adding, “We’re not going to let the communists get in our way. … It’s a very unattractive lot.” 

The remark served to reinforce a message the president had sounded earlier in the week. 

On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office, regarding leftist candidates, “They use the word ‘social democrat’ because it sounds so nice, but it’s really communism you’re talking about.”

Similar attack lines are being pushed by Trump allies. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Wednesday complained that the Democratic Party had changed vastly since the 1960s era typified by former President Kennedy. Mullin contended it was now the party “of Bernie Sanders, who openly claims to be a........

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