Humorist Will Rogers once said, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." There's a lot of truth in that. We Democrats love to argue among ourselves, because we are thinkers. We don't get our orders (or beliefs) from the top. We like to tell those at the top what they should be doing. And sometimes, that can make the party look disorganized. But it is also the party's strength.
The latest of these intra-party squabbles is between four progressive women elected to Congress in 2018 (Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, and Omar) and Speaker of the House Pelosi. The four congresswomen have made it public when they disagree with House Democratic leadership, and Speaker Pelosi is unhappy about that because she wants the party to have a unified stand.
This is nothing new. There have been intra-party fights between progressives and moderates/conservatives for many years. And even though Ocasio-Cortez remarked about Pelosi picking our "women of color", she knows that Pelosi is not racist and she could have phrased her argument in a better way. The media is making a big deal about this, but I don't doubt for a minute that both sides will unify for the next election.
But Trump, with some nasty tweets, has jumped in the middle of this -- and he is a racist. He's trying to divide the Democrats, and at the same time, appeal to his racist followers in the Republican Party. In his tweets (see them above), Trump infers that the four congresswomen are not really Americans. He called for them to go back where they came from.
So, what is "their country"? Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York City. Pressley was born in Cincinnati, and Tlaib was born in Detroit. Only Omar was born outside the U.S., and she has been in the United States for the last 27 years.
They are all American citizens.
They are all duly-elected members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Whether you agree with their politics or not, they deserve to be treated with respect. They did not deserve the racist and xenophobic rant from Donald Trump. Trump should be ashamed, and if he was decent, he would apologize to these four ladies. Unfortunately, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he has neither decency nor shame.
