Many of Ms. Pak’s columns revolve around a recurring theme: “Let’s talk about race.” Her latest column “We’re better than this” (Reporter, July 26), is another unimaginative and insipid essay on race.

It recounts her one (and only one) direct experience of racism: a kindergarten schoolyard taunting. She used that painful experience to prequalify her to relate to the taunting of AOC Plus 3 (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)) (referring to them as The Squad carries dark military overtones that are undoubtedly “triggering” to Pacifists) by our president.

Although his rhetoric was clumsy and dumb, the intent of the president’s message was not racist. In fact, the underlying message he conveyed should be familiar to anyone who has operated a business and got tired of hearing one employee’s constant whining and complaining: “Look, if you think this job [America] is SO horrible and you complain about it ALL the time, to ANYONE who will listen, why don’t you go find ANOTHER job [country]?!”

It was an unseemly thing for a president to say, true, but based on recent polls a plurality of Americans agree that the hyperbole and misinformation that spews from the mouths of AOC Plus 3 is similarly unattractive and unhelpful.

For example, while asserting that conditions for illegal immigrants (sorry: “asylum seekers”) in Obama-era detention centers are horrible and that helpless immigrant families are “drinking from toilets,” she later voted against a bipartisan bill that pledged billions more taxpayer dollars to improve conditions at the facilities. If President Donald Trump is the only one brave enough to stand up to the political bullying of AOC Plus 3, so be it. I pity the plight of Madam Speaker Pelosi, who has to figure out how to herd these wildcats while keeping the Democrats’ “Socialists R Us” presidential candidates from running completely off the road, yielding another electoral humiliation.

Roger Clarke-Johnson

Kirkland