Disagreements OK

I watched the Republican squabble over who gets to be speaker of the House. I view the situation with my own sort of alarm. Not for the first time in recent history, we are given to understand that dissent or disagreement within a major political party is some sort of disaster, or at least a sign of political malpractice. I quite disagree!

Back when Bernie Sanders was a viable candidate for president, the focus was on a split among Democrats — “progressives” versus “moderates.” Goodness me, there they were on the primary debate stages, criticizing one another rather than always criticizing Republicans. Horrors! Obama described it as a “circular firing squad.”

We only have two political parties in this country, for those who hope to win. Do we really want the understanding to be that debate within these two behemoths must take place out of sight, or perhaps not at all? At that rate, where and when are regular citizens exposed to real political disputation? Is that the thing that isn’t supposed to happen? In a democracy?

There are indeed some aspects of the current situation that are messed up, even scary. Kevin McCarthy has given everything he has to appease the Matt Gaetz wing of the GOP. The whole party has opted for election denial, and now the race is on to be more-MAGA-than-thou. Yikes! This could get even uglier than it already is.

Even so, as a general matter, visible disagreements have to be accepted within our political parties. There is no meaningful debate between those parties, and it has to be okay to discuss real policy differences somewhere.

Eric Kuhn Middletown