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

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