Dear Mr. Harden,

As a fellow Democrat, I applaud your willingness to keep serving our country, this time from the US House of Representatives. Certainly flipping Maryland’s first district will not only serve the district but also the state and the nation as a whole.

In your June 17 email you raise an interesting question: why people should be affiliated with an insurrectionist faction. It is commendable that a candidate make such a suggestion at this time in which even conservatives assert that they “represent clear and present danger to our democracy.” The obedience to the Big Lie and to policies that the vast majority of Americans reject go against our freedoms, in particular to be a voter that chooses their representatives.

Regrettably, in your message you also propose that those people that choose to change party affiliation revert to their old one after the primary election. Voters should change their party affiliation because their current one does not represent their values, not to affect the election of their opponent. 

It has to be clear to all candidates that having an R following their name in the ballot immediately affiliates them with a faction that wants to curtail our freedoms, whose fanaticism and short sidedness fosters ignorance and intolerance; a faction that planned and actively participated in a failed coup and is prepared to do it again.

As you write, we need to expand our Democratic base. And we are doing it, not to favor a candidate in the primary election but because Democrats present platforms and enact policies that benefit people.  We need to do it for these right reasons. We need to assure that Democrats vote for the Democratic candidates and we need to keep those voters who flipped, affiliated and voting Democratic for the foreseeable future. The risks of doing otherwise, are too high.

Sincerely,

Daniel Golombek

Daniel Golombek is the President of the Baltimore County Progressive Democrats Club. The views expressed in the letter are his own.