For more than two years now we have heard the Democrats complain about President Donald Trump.
And they have a lot of complaints.
One of the more persistent is that he plays to the extremes on the right. That his policies and pronouncements inflame a base that embraces the worst of American conservatism.
Yes, we hear that a lot.
But those Democrats should start looking at some of their own in the same light.
Take U.S. Rep Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez from New York, for example. From her pie-in-the-sky "Green New Deal" to her recent comments at Austin's South by Southwest festival, where she deemed capitalism unredeemable and didn't have much good to say about former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan or political moderates in general.
The idea of creeping socialism-even "democratic socialism"-scares most mainstream Americans and that includes moderate Democrats. As it should. Yet instead of decrying her screeds, many leading Democrats look to her as a leader for the future.
And then there's Minnesota's U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose ill-conceived attitudes and comments about Israel are tainting the party with anti-Semitism as Democratic leaders walk on eggshells to avoid criticizing her by name.
Talk about appealing to the worst of the worst extremes.
We don't see how the Democrats can claim any high ground when they won't hold their own to account. But if they continue to fail to do so, we think the president, the Republicans and quite possibly the voters will.