Senator Ernst shut down at townhall with people shouting "YOUR LAST TERM"

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

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https://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/your-last-term-sen-joni-ernst-faces-defeaning-chants-at-veterans-town-hall/

[Ronnie]

I think it might be time to make a megathread for all these kinds of incidents...

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

It's sad that people only become this passionate when their side is out of power. Imagine if liberals were as passionate as the Tea Party in 2009/2010.

[Mr. Smith]

It's sad that people only become this passionate when their side is out of power. Imagine if liberals were as passionate as the Tea Party in 2009/2010.

Which also formed only because Her Hockey Momness didn't become a heartbeat away from the Presidency by 7 points.

[Torie]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

[pbrower2a]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

Liberals are doing what their political opposites did in 2009 and 2010.  Why should it not work for them this time with a President more unpopular more quickly than was Barack Obama?

The Tea Party started acting when President Obama was still well above water in popular support. The anti-Trump protests begin when he is already in political trouble.   

[The_Doctor]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

The Left is just doing what the angry right did in 2009. They've concluded anger and passion beats reason. Of course this all began in 2003 over Iraq but really has roots in the unresolved 1960s, I think (you would know more than I with all due respect).

[Bismarck]

I think Ernst is fine. Isn't she generally popular? Especially since there are four whole years until her election.

[Ronnie]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

If behavior like this backfired, Trump wouldn't be President. People will come up with whatever evidence they want to justify support for their candidate. I agree that these obnoxious protests aren't exactly winning over votes, but I doubt it really drives many away at this point in our political discourse

Okay. How about this: it's just wrong, so don't do it. Who cares whether it wins them votes.

What if we deny that premise?  I think people have the right to air their grievances to their representatives, particularly if the occupant of the White House is someone as odious as Donald Trump.

[Virginiá]

I think Ernst is fine. Isn't she generally popular? Especially since there are for whole years until her election.

Depends - from last year I saw a DMR poll showing about even and a morning consult poll showing her moderately popular. Perhaps she is somewhere between the two, and has a rating best described as "meh."

[DrScholl]

This will go a long way. Like it or not, people like discord and it's the only way some will get fired up.

[Xing]

I mean, I greatly prefer respectful discourse over shouting matches, but I can't say that people like Ernst don't deserve an earful from their constituents.

[pbrower2a]

I think Ernst is fine. Isn't she generally popular? Especially since there are four whole years until her election.

Polls of Iowa just before Election 2016 showed her with approval ratings around 40. You expect that with an extremist in a moderate state. 

[Confused Democrat]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

Backfire? Really?

This is straight out of the Tea Party playbook, and they've managed to take over both houses of Congress and the Oval Office.

[Lief 🗽]

It would be nice, but one must remember that Iowa is filled to the brim with angry, stupid farmers, their brains turned to mush by a steady diet of Monsanto's mutant corn. A woman yelling about castrating hogs naturally appeals to these monstrous simpletons, and will be tough to beat.

[Figueira]

If 2020 is a huge Democratic landslide, Ernst could be in trouble.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Brent Brinkley shall rise from his ashes!

[Cashew]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

If behavior like this backfired, Trump wouldn't be President. People will come up with whatever evidence they want to justify support for their candidate. I agree that these obnoxious protests aren't exactly winning over votes, but I doubt it really drives many away at this point in our political discourse

Okay. How about this: it's just wrong, so don't do it. Who cares whether it wins them votes.

What if we deny that premise?  I think people have the right to air their grievances to their representatives, particularly if the occupant of the White House is someone as odious as Donald Trump.

I agree with your entire post, but there are some limitations on the right to assembly. We can't be hypocrites on this issue.

Being against hypocrisy does not nesecitate going to the other extreme-unilateral disarmament.

[JA]

This kind of behavior will backfire. One can disagree without shutting a meeting down. What happened to civility? Yes, I know, Trump sets a bad example, but that is no excuse.

Backfire? Really?

This is straight out of the Tea Party playbook, and they've managed to take over both houses of Congress and the Oval Office.

You're assuming the strategy employed by the tea party will have the same effectiveness when employed by the left. There's really no evidence (thus far) that this is true.

[OSR stands with Israel]

To me the divisive nature of our politics started with the 2000 election , and really accelerated in late 2003 and since then both parties have obstructed the  party holding the white house.

[Blackacre]

One major thing that ties the Trump-era left and the Tea Party together is the apocalyptic way each views the President.

Tea Partiers viewed Obama as a threat to their liberty and way of life, his policies completely alien to the America they believe they know. Modern-day liberals feel similarly about Trump, hence the similarities in tone between the two. (put aside the validity of either; while I personally believe that the Tea Partiers were wrong about Obama and that the left is correct about Trump, that doesn't matter when comparing the two)

Bush was something different. Liberals saw him as a moron who stole the election, but he had a few things on his side that kept this kind of opposition energy from forming against him in the initial stages of his presidency. Those being 9/11, his lovable buffoonery, the Reagan paradigm still being strong, the Iraq War being initially popular, and the fact that the left lacks any parallels to the souls of the GOP reaction to Obama: The Kochs and Mitch McConnell. (they still don't, but now at least they can copy their playbook) There was a large backlash later in Bush's Presidency, but again, that was different. That backlash was mostly a reaction to Bush's actual failures: the Iraq War, the economic crash, gas prices, Katrina, Social Security, etc.

Meanwhile, the opposition reactions to Obama and Trump were/are more about potential failures, the existential threat they pose to the opposition's vision of America, not the actual ways they damaged their country. It has to be like this; in early Year 1, the new President doesn't have enough time to fail as spectacularly as 2nd Term Bush did. By this point Obama was still trying to get his stimulus through, and Trump, while failing as a human being, hasn't even attempted to get any significant legislation passed, including a war resolution like Bush did in 2003. There was the Muslim ban, but that was blocked by the courts early enough to not completely melt down like the Iraq War.