I am completely ambivalent in my feelings about the speaker fight in Congress. Maybe it will be resolved when this gets printed, but my concerns remain.
On the one hand, I would love to see the moderate Democrats make a deal with the moderate Republicans to come up with a speaker who will run a bi-partisan House. A House where the parties work together to come up with legislation that benefits both their constituencies.
Wonderful. Except, except … Both the extreme right, and the extreme left have come about because government business as usual simply hasn’t been working for a lot of people. While my sympathies are with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), both she and Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) were elected by people dissatisfied with government. In fact, Ocasio-Cortez expressed some sympathy with the rebelling Republicans, noting that they are objecting to the leadership-heavy way things are done in the House. A system that makes many representatives feel as if they have, despite being elected officials of their people, no say.
I’m thinking, maybe I don’t want the moderates to form a coalition, but rather the extremes to form a coalition and work together to create a House that actually does benefit both constituencies.
Although, in all fairness, I think the Democrats are beginning to understand this better as a party and have actually done some useful things in the past two years.
Dennis Merritt
Shelburne Falls