Letter to the editor: Extreme politics on both sides harmful to country

I watched with disgust the debate last week between Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Their extreme political philosophies are both harmful to this country. West Coast liberalism has degraded the quality of life in San Francisco and made Portland a byword for chaos. Florida’s ultraconservative social agenda makes pariahs of many of its residents. My own ex-wife died of covid last year, her spiraling ill health no doubt triggered by Florida’s refusal to adopt Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

The thought of the repeat of a Trump vs. Biden election makes me deeply depressed. If Biden refuses to step aside despite his age, he should at least abandon Kamala Harris as a running mate and choose someone more centrist. Harris was the administration’s point person for solving the immigration crisis. How did that work out?

I generally vote Democratic, but a “No Labels” ticket headed by someone like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has a lot of appeal. My only reservation is that the last time the electorate in a presidential election was so fragmented was 1860, a prelude to our bloody Civil War.

To quote Shakespeare: “A plague on both your houses.”

Richard Krepski

Highland Park