A Moderate and a Progressive Mix It Up — and Find Consensus

The following email exchange took place recently between me, a moderate, and Rob Crawford, a progressive. Rob is a retired humanities professor with the University of Washington/Tacoma and served as state chair of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). It was over the issue of torture — when the George W. Bush administration began engaging in torture in Iraq in 2004 — that Rob and I became acquainted. This exchange commenced after my recent commentary, “’Let’s Take Back Our Democracy — and Improve It While We’re At It’: Democrats’ Winning Strategy in 2020.” It opens with Rob protesting my failure to defend “the Squad” — Democratic freshman Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Rashida Tlaib (MI), and Ilhan Omar (MN). I have done minimal editing; Rob approves both editing and posting.

22 July

Dear Carla,

Excellent post. I was entirely with you until you called on the Squad to be more responsible. Name one thing you think is not responsible. As for challenging the Democratic centrist leadership, if not now, when? For the leadership to run scared of these voices is to court disaster, in my humble opinion. They should welcome the vigorous debate among Dems, not be intimidated by the slur of anti-Semitism, and stand up for the diversity of views — and most importantly four Congresswomen of color. That said, I personally do not know, and I don’t see how anyone can know, what will be most effective against Trump in…