RICHARD FEINSTEIN

PRINCETON, N.J.

To the Editor:

Mark Penn and Andrew Stein, harking back to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, are invoking the wrong practical role models for today’s Democrats. The deepest potential sources of raw Democratic power are rooted in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which brought his party sustained success at the polls over many election cycles.

F.D.R. managed this strategic feat by concentrating on the broad rights of workers while, often callously, ignoring the moral imperatives of identity politics, though the latter reached existential proportions during his presidency. Roosevelt established Social Security, created government-funded jobs, empowered labor unions and pushed marginal upper-income tax rates for the rich beyond anything remotely imaginable in 2017. At the same time, he placated Dixiecrats by turning a blind eye to Jim Crow, and he mollified nativists by allowing immigration quotas to keep doomed European Jews, among them my own relatives, away from our shores.

Economic justice is a unifying theme for the long haul, pulling together the majoritarian power of numbers against plutocrats, even though for “pragmatic” reasons some legitimately aggrieved minority interests may be obscenely sacrificed.

DONALD MENDER

RHINEBECK, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Mark Penn and Andrew Stein offer a breathtaking example of Orwellian doublespeak and historical rewriting for their own ends. Clintonian centrism offers nothing to working-class voters other than what got them into the crises in which they have found themselves in the past quarter century.

The Democratic Party establishment, which anointed Hillary Clinton before the campaign began, seems unable to comprehend much of anything about American culture beyond the urban centers of the West Coast, the northern half of the East Coast, and about four other states. This is a big, diverse country, with a long history of politics and politicians who were forced to adapt their policies to a broad-based electorate.

Much of the news media, which consistently diminished or denigrated Bernie Sanders with adjectives such as “grumpy,” “old” and “crabby,” enabled and supported that myopia because of their own insularity and disrespect for rural dwellers and the working class.

Mrs. Clinton was one of the most unpopular Democrats in modern history, and one of the few Democrats who could have lost to Donald Trump. The Clintonian wing of the Democratic Party ultimately brought us Mr. Trump. If left in command, it will pave the way for Ted Cruz and others of his and Mr. Trump’s ilk. So go ahead, loyal Democrats, keep thinking that the Russians did it or that you can ignore most of the country. Forget about the party’s roots in the policies of F.D.R., J.F.K. and L.B.J. That’s just what got us in this mess.