There's a healthy discussion going on. It allows for insults and point-scoring. Good. It's about whether people like me delude ourselves by writing in support of President Cyril Ramaphosa as he cleans up the ANC, or parts of it, and the state, or parts of it.
Last week a pipsqueak in the DA, Jacques Maree, tweeted this: "Columnists like Max du Preez & Peter Bruce, both of whom were dropped in a vat of Ramaphoza Kool-Aid at some point, have plenty to answer for. There's only one ANC and Cyril is that ANC. The notion that SA must give him a bigger mandate is as daft as claiming he's not a populist."
I don't know Maree. I blocked him ages ago on Twitter. But other people in and around the DA are suddenly making the same sort of noises.
Gareth van Onselen, a huge and deliciously aggressive intellect, has also recently tweeted on the subject: "It was the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa that voted for an EFF motion to change the constitution, to allow for expropriation without compensation. Not Mandela, Mbeki or even that populist lunatic Zuma could achieve that. Well done Ramaphosa! The ANC's greatest radical socialist."
And then this, about a column Du Preez wrote last week: "This is what happens when your entire world view has been captured by the ANC. You lose not only the imagination to think otherwise but the bravery or conviction to advocate anything different. This column is, in its entirety, a white flag. It's just sad."
And then party leader Mmusi Maimane waded in, naming myself and Du Preez and adding Carol Paton. "I want to interrogate this theory," he writes of the view that giving Ramaphosa a big mandate in the next election will strengthen him to the general benefit of the country. "Unless it is thoroughly debunked, well-meaning people may end up contributing to SA's further demise."
He notes that, anyway, it isn't voters who give Ramaphosa a mandate, it's the ANC national executive committee (NEC). And that's right. He also notes that there's only one ANC on the ballot paper. Agreed.
But then he drifts into speculation. That's my job.
Ramaphosa will never be as powerful as he is now, he says. Once the election is over the ANC NEC will get rid of him and replace him with Deputy President David Mabuza. Cue colourful description of the horrors of the Mabuza presidency to come.
He raises my point about ensuring Ramaphosa gets a big enough mandate so he isn't forced into coalitions with the EFF, but decides not to discuss it. I'm not in the least persuaded by any of this. The DA is as angry about the argument for a bigger mandate for Ramaphosa as the EFF is.
I got called out and insulted for it by Julius Malema the last time he instructed the media to appear before him.
And, anyway, expropriation was forced on Ramaphosa by the Zuma faction at the ANC conference last year, not by the EFF.
And if not Cyril, then give me an alternative. The DA? Nope. They could not hold the country together, and a weakened ANC is ripe for EFF re-infection. Yes, the DA is relatively clean but it is moribund. Maimane is not in charge.
I have seen, and been waiting for, a range of policy announcements from him for years and not a single one has emerged. A few months ago we were promised a key change by Gwen Ngwenya, the DA head of policy no less, in economic policy. It has not happened. Why? Because the party is as divided as the ANC is.
People are right about the ANC. It is fragmented, corrupt and petty.
But there are decent people in it and they, for the moment, actually have control. You can talk to them. Having said that, Ramaphosa needs to face a full parliamentary investigation into his family's relationship with the Watson bothers, given the confusion this week over payments from them to his ANC presidential campaign.
Earlier this year RW Johnson, hardly an ANC enthusiast, wrote: "Whether we like it or not, Cyril Ramaphosa and his old UDF comrades are our thin red line, our last line of defence against a national collapse ... not only has the DA failed to rise to the moment, but it has failed to understand even the situation it is in."
Next year's elections are already upon us. It's why commentators get so much attention. I should, I suppose, logically vote for the DA and I'm looking forward to Alan Winde running the Western Cape. He is going to be very good.
But with every passing day I feel the DA speaks to me less and I feel I understand it less. I admire Ramaphosa but haven't yet made up my election mind.
I will before the vote, and I'll tell you...