Democrats Pull Back From the Edge of Disaster. Again.

Mr. Dionne is a contributing Opinion writer.

My candidate for the most unexpected but also most important word of this summer of Democratic dissonance comes from an unlikely source.

When a New York Times reporter asked Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrats’ left-wing Senate nominee in Michigan, to describe Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, in one or two words, he said “pragmatic.” This is the same Dr. El-Sayed who had said earlier this summer, “If you’re Chuck Schumer, I’m pretty damn dangerous.”

It seems that two can work the pragmatic side of the street. For Democrats who hope for a truce in the factional warfare that has engulfed the party since the June victories of........

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