Mr. Cowan’s Dec. 4 opinion piece inadvertently provides an explanation in the first paragraph for Trump’s win of the popular vote when he assumes that only Democrats are fans of democracy. A bit more nuanced than Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket full of deplorables” perhaps, but still, winning support for a party’s platform doesn’t start by insulting people of a different political perspective.

And despite the many bright spots Mr. Cowan offers for bruised Dems, there’s no denying that a majority of voters rejected the party’s presidential candidate, which is to say a continuation of the last four years.

Obviously, supplying munitions to Israel for its genocide in Gaza left many progressives at home or voting for another and the lasting legacy of Bill Clinton’s support of the neoliberal economic agenda pushed many into a downward economic trajectory and into the voting booth for Trump. Note that Mr. Cowan’s piece coincides with the 25th anniversary of the WTO police riots in Seattle which I witnessed as a part of the organized labor rally. Teamsters and Turtles united to stop Clinton and the delegates from convening but NAFTA was ratified anyway and the Dems are paying for it now.

My political leaning is somewhere to the left of Marx but I can see how Trump represents the change so many are desperate for. And regardless of my personal political philosophy, I want to have conversations with my neighbors who disagree with me or who voted for Trump because, well, they’re my neighbors. And they don’t shame me for how I vote.

Nearly every progressive congressional candidate who ran on an economic populist platform gained office.

If the national Democratic Party ever wants to win the presidency again it should disavowal itself of neoliberalism, champion human rights instead of identity politics, and stop shaming people who disagree with them.

AL Cairns

Quilcene