It has been pointed out that President Trump’s attack on four Democratic congresswomen may have been calculated for political reasons. That is, Mr. Trump may have hoped outrage over his tweet would show his base that moderate Democrats have more in common with their party’s radicals than they would like voters to think.

If that was the president’s goal, it worked, to a point. But it also masked the more telling story. For those old enough to remember, back in the 60’s, the more radical Democrats used similar language as today to excoriate their party leaders. Thus, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has attacked “newly elected women of color” is so old it’s new. The remaining question: Was this a veiled accusation of Mrs. Pelosi as a “racist”?

Not to be outdone, AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, took Native American Rep. Sharice Davids to task for not voting on a bill exactly as the progressive element desired. This left the rank-and-file in the House Democratic caucus wondering, “Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?”

Thus, the notion that Democrats speak as one, radicals like the relatively moderate, may be true on some issues, but these recent brickbats suggest there’s a coming schism — that is, if all party members can’t vote their consciences but instead must tow the Progressive line.

We Americans have a long tradition of facing up to our disagreements, of hashing them out rather than attempting to make them go away. But to say the president alone is guilty of not doing so is wrong. True, Mr. Trump did falsely contend that the four women at whom he lashed out — Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and fellow Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. — “came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe ...” Only Ms. Omar, hailing from Somalia, is not native-born.

What’s more, advising the four to leave the United States and go clean their own nation’s messes was not just factually wrong, but wrong, period. Far better would the president have been to roundly rip his chosen four for their attacks on our government and our society, and, most of all, for their hare-brained schemes like the “Green New Deal.”

No need to get personal. Just fight on the battlefield of ideas.