The "#NeverKamala" faction take it too far...but it's legitimate to ask policy questions. [View all]

[Ken Burch]

I've seen some of those tweets about Senator Harris, and there are pretty much all inappropriate. I wholeheartedly condemn the those who make them.

But if Senator Harris is to be our nominee, progressives do have the right to ask tough questions about what she believes on the issues of the day, just as we always ask such questions of anybody else we as a party would consider nominating.

In particular, we, as a party have the right to know if she, like all the other possible candidates, is going to run on a new program, or just one more rehash of our current policies(or, God forbid, any of them make the proposal to move further right on any significant issues)

We need to know to know where every candidate comes down on defense and foreign policy...it can't be progressive to get into any further military interventions anywhere anytime soon. And we owe it to the country to get the hell out of the Arab/Muslim world militarily, given that our presence there has done nothing but damage.

We need to know where every candidate comes down on the role of corporate donors in politics-especially since we know that corporate donations are never without strings, and always end up constraining our party from taking progressive stands on a large number of issues, issues that matter Just much as the issues corporate donors accept us taking progressive stands about(i.e., those NOT involving economic issues, trade, and defense).

We need to know where every candidate comes down on the idea of and the way trade deals are made...it's time to have a process for that that includes labor, peoples of color, environmentalists and the poor ON the negotiating teams.

And we need to know where every candidate comes on how to deal with poverty and economic injustice, on the question of extreme concentration of wealth-and on finding ways to economically revitalize(at high wages and with union representation)the parts of this country that were left to rot economically since 1981, some left to rot long before that.

The hashtagers communicate in unacceptable ways. But that doesn't mean there aren't reasonable questions that can be legitimate asked of ANY of the possible 2020 candidates.

In condemning abusive tactics, we must make sure that the condemnation never turns into a demand for silence.