William Marvel: Ruthful Democrats

A few days ago, one of the more monomaniacal local disciples of the Trump resistance earned column space here to appeal for "ruthlessness" from the Democratic Party in order to win the next presidential election.

Democrats do tend to be infuriatingly ruthful in their use of exaggerated pity as a dialectical weapon in political debate, but otherwise their behavior already mirrors the desired ruthlessness that they supposedly abhor in Republicans. In fact, that has helped to push me even further away from the Democratic Party, which I first embraced a half-century ago precisely because it seemed less unscrupulous than the Republicans.