To the Editor:

Re “Democrats Face Primary Shove From New Left” (front page, March 5):

In this midterm election year, the Democratic Party is again poised — pardon the cliché — to snatch humiliating defeat from the jaws of certain victory. The Democrats persist in their quixotic attempt to woo those who voted for President Trump and those who are on the fence. To do this, they temporize on issues with respect to which there should be no waffling or wavering.

That is the royal road to failure, and a well-deserved failure it would be. Unless the Democrats can shed their spinelessness and timidity, they will not energize that crucial youth, female, gay and ethnic horde that is yearning for uncompromising progressivism.

This is the mandate that the Democrats should embrace by stating without fear or shame that guns should be taken away, that the environment is too precious to despoil, that a woman has an inalienable right to choose, that immigrants are welcome, that the wealthy should pay more, that universal health care must be implemented and so forth.

In short, unless the Democrats use their own bully pulpit to topple the bullying pulpits that our White House and legislatures have become, they are fated to lose, and they will deserve to lose.