The Center Must Not Hold
I agree with Robert L. Borosage’s “WTF” moment regarding DCCC and DSCC endorsements [“Which Side Are They On?,” June 13/20.] I live in South Texas next to Henry Cuellar’s congressional district. It was infuriating when Nancy Pelosi came down here and endorsed the anti-choice Cuellar over the progressive Jessica Cisneros in the primary. It was heartbreaking when Cisneros then lost by fewer than 300 votes. And now, since the June 24 Roe decision, my inbox has been pelted with pleas from none other than Nancy Pelosi asking me to help fund races to “build the BIGGEST Democratic Majorities in history, and make Republicans rue the day they ever came after our county’s women.” Seriously, WTF.
south padre island, tex.
Both Sides
At this moment in our history, Republicans and Democrats are not equally responsible for the “loss of national morale and discipline,” as David Bromwich implies in “Can Another War Save Us From Ourselves?” [June 13/20]. Repeated recounts and numerous court cases found no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the results of the 2020 election. On the other hand, there is evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. To dismiss the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller or the Senate Intelligence Committee as “Russiagate,” or to say that liberals accused Donald Trump of being a Russian agent, is to misrepresent the truth. In spite of legitimate questions about the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton conceded, as did Al Gore in 2000. Both of them put the peaceful transfer of power over their own political interests. The only candidate who didn’t do that was Trump.
To draw a false equivalence between Democratic concerns and Republican lies is not unbiased. It renders assistance to those who are working to undermine our democracy.
reading, penn.
Bromwich manages to get through the whole article without using the words “climate,” “mask,” “vaccine,” “disinformation,” or “science.” But he somehow finds the time to note that people are worried they will offend each other. While it’s true that many Democrats don’t support clean energy, the GOP owns the anti-science movement, and their members in Congress are accelerating the great extinction caused by climate change.
Harlem Internationalism
Re “The Stalwart,” by Robert Greene II [June 13/20]: Hubert Harrison criticized W.E.B. Du Bois for his endorsement of the US entry into World War I. Jeffrey B. Perry describes this in detail in Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918, yet in his review of the biography, Greene refers to these differences as “squabbles” rather than a pattern-setting debate that has emerged with each war fought by the US for “democracy,” down to its present proxy war in Ukraine. As Harrison put it, “as long as the Color Line exists…the cant of ‘Democracy’” is “intended as dust in the eyes of white voters.”
