My favorite line from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove is when President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) breaks up a scuffle between the Soviet ambassador and an Army general, and exclaims, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!” In Philadelphia on Day One of the Democratic Convention, I found the same incredulousness coursing through my Twitter feed. To paraphrase President Muffley: “Gentleman, you can’t have politics breaking out in here, this is a political convention!”

Since major-party conventions gradually morphed from business gatherings into made-for-TV infomercials, partisans have feared politics breaking out the way a child fears the dark. They repeat the mantra of party unity, dread that the media will play up any tension, get queasy at how an untactful chant at the wrong time in July might lose an election in November.

That wasn’t always the case. After Nancy Pelosi herself was drowned out by chants of “Bernie, Bernie!” at Monday’s California delegation breakfast, she calmly explained to the media her formative experiences at Democratic conventions. “In 1976, I came [to the convention] as a Jerry Brown delegate, we thought we were going to oust the nomination from Jimmy Carter,” Pelosi said. “In 1980, Ted Kennedy came, thought he was going to do that as well. In ’84, Gary Hart had a big contingent in San Francisco. So this is nothing new. People get excited about the campaigns that they’re in.”

That excitement, even that disagreement, is a sign of vibrancy within a political coalition. The Democratic Party had a cathartic moment yesterday, an open debate between family members with real differences of opinion. It was predictably difficult, because it sprung from a real place. It mirrored life because politics mirrors life. And it shouldn’t be hushed up and buried, but embraced. Because the way to be “stronger together” is to start by being honest and true.

Picking out the loudest and angriest person in a room full of thousands is not journalism, it’s a card trick.

To be clear, a media chasing the familiar storyline of “Democrats in disarray” decided to overinflate the level of tension. The defining image for me on Monday was a Bernie Sanders supporter and Hillary Clinton supporter in heated discussion, while 30 reporters and cameramen huddled around them. I must have seen that 10 times. Conventions are a target-rich environment for activists seeking attention, and the endless repetition of news reports of particularly angry dissenters on social media expands the distortion like a balloon. Picking out the loudest and angriest person in a room full of thousands is not journalism, it’s a card trick.