Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s latest statements about young women voters and Roe v. Wade highlight again that she does not understand feminism, the Democratic Party, or how to build a winning coalition.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz has led the Democratic Party to our lowest numbers since the Hoover Administration.  Since 2010, we have lost 912 state legislative seats and 30 state legislative chambers.

Her recent statements and her continuation at the helm of our party could decimate us even further.

Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, recently told the New York Times Magazine that women in the Millennial generation, those in their 20s and 30s, are not committed to fighting for abortion rights because their “entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.”

No kidding. Women who have grown up seeing the full effect of abortion-on-demand on their lives, who have seen abuse of women and children facilitated by the abortion industry, who have seen medical advances such as enhanced ultrasound – which gives the lie to the claim that they carry just a clump of cells – these women somehow don’t support abortion.

The younger generations have grown up with science supporting the fact that life begins in the womb, while the abortion industry wants younger people to accept, like zombies, the obsolete, 40-year-old notion that until a baby is born, she or he is just a clump of cells.  Wasserman Schultz is trying to shame and coerce these young, independent thinkers into an old-fashioned groupthink mentality that abortion is the best solution to an unplanned pregnancy.

And this is exactly the type of Wasserman Schultz messaging that is leading the Democratic Party toward another dead end.  Her leadership is quashing any challenges to the party establishment and closing off the party’s inner circle from members who have differing views on abortion.  Under Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic Party continues to shrink in federal, state and local elections. In fact, in 2 democratic leaning gerrymandered districts in Illinois, she could not recruit a single Democrat to run.

A real leader of the party would embrace our differences and see that the way forward is to allow pro-life progressive Democrats to flourish.  The election of John Bel Edwards in Louisiana shows that pro-life Democrats can win and that embracing pro-life Democrats is the critical to our party’s future growth.

The excitement for Sen. Bernie Sanders shows that progressives also want a voice in the party as well. They, too, are tired of being shut out.

Wasserman Schultz’s clueless rhetoric about Roe shows that she does not understand that women are more than their reproductive functions.  Obviously, she does not understand, either, that women can be pro-life.  A majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in only a few circumstances or not at all.  Thirty-two percent of Democrats and 50% of Independents self-identify as pro-life.  It is no wonder that the Democratic Party, with its pro-abortion stance, is no longer winning favor among Americans.

It’s time the party stopped allowing this sham leadership to continue.  “Leading from behind” is one strategy; “leading in the wrong direction” is another strategy – a strategy for losing.  The Democratic Party deserves real leadership and a fair primary election. The party deserves to have all its members in the big tent.  And Democratic women deserve to be treated as individuals, not as a monolith at the service of the party’s exclusive inner circle.

For the good of our Democratic Party, Wasserman Schultz must go.

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