Protestors confront politicians at town halls megathread

[pbrower2a]

I think there have been enough of these events at this point to warrant a megathread containing them all.  If a mod objects for whatever reason, then feel free to delete this thread.

Comparisons are appropriate. If the techniques are different in Nebraska and New Jersey, then it might be telling. Issues are relevant.   

For most non-locals. "Congressman from Illinois" and "Congressman from Indiana" will be all that matters.     

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If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

-- Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States.

...I wonder if there will be any resignations out of this. 

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People packed the auditorium of a Pat Toomey town hall...without him in it!  Instead, they put up a literal empty suit in the front of the room:

https://twitter.com/INDIVISIBLENEP1/status/834233247307558912

https://twitter.com/StephanieRit/status/834429303978938368

Something similar happened over here with Darrell Issa. They had a Waldo cardboard cutout with his head on it:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-town-hall-20170220-story.html

Is it a no show at a town hall when it isn't the elected officials townhall?

Did Toomey's office set up the town hall? Cause I'm reading both Toomey & Issa's "town halls" were set up by protestor groups

Neither Toomey nor Issa set up those events. They were protests pretending to be town halls

My understanding though is that he will not host townhalls of his own. I get that it is unacceptable to just shout people down and not let them speak, but what is the point of even having district-level reps if they won't talk to people?

When one speaks only with lobbyists, right-wing think tanks, and big funders of one's campaigns, then who needs town halls?

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US Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas is holding a town hall on Saturday. This is how the local Republican Party is promoting it:



Instead, here's how it ended:

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Sad!

Texas is R-leaning in statewide and federal elections to the extent that the suburbs of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio are strongly Republican. Suburbs of Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, New York,  Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington have not been so strongly Republican.

It has been nearly a quarter century since I lived in the general area of Representative Burgess' district, and I remember when suburban Dallas went from D to R in the 1980s. We need to remember that the suburbs of Dallas that had some very rural character a quarter-century ago have lost the rural characteristics. Air pollution (for a big city with a hot climate, Dallas had rather clean air) is more severe. Traffic jams are getting worse. Hastily-built infrastructure needs costly renovation and maintenance.

Note also that Texas isn't the vulgar, hick world that it once had a reputation for. Texas is now above average in educational achievement. Well-educated people were more able to see through Donald Trump before he was elected, and they can see through him and his policies even more.   

Donald Trump got only 52.23% of the popular vote in Texas in 2016 in a true binary race. it could be that he reminds people of their landlords, not a popular group of people in urban settings (people who see renters only as cash cows)... but the Congressional Representative may not have that problem. Their problem could be a President unpopular for other reasons.

Could Texas be the next Virginia for Republicans? Absolutely not. Should it swing away from the GOP in the next Presidential election it takes nearly three times as many electoral votes as Virginia. 38 electoral votes -- that is more than Michigan and Pennsylvania together; as much as Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio together; and one fewer than Florida and Wisconsin together. Except in 1968 Republicans have not won the Presidency without Texas...

If Americans despise President Trump in November 2018 they have but one reliable recourse: the House of Representatives. 

   

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Michigan Congressman Dave Trott (MI 11th) holds a staged Town Hall Meeting

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/18/1644907/-Michigan-Congressman-Dave-Trott-MI-11th-holds-a-staged-Town-Hall-Meeting

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When these lefty rentamob types talk about "hoping to have a chance to express their concerns" what they mean is that instead of asking questions to hear what his answer would be they wanted to take up as much time as they ranting at and hectoring him.  Now the Congressman is a big boy and he has to expect to put up with a certain amount of that as part of his job.

However he also has to have consideration for constituents of his who have come to hear what he has to say on a variety of issues and not have to put up with spending half the time there not hearing what he has to say but listening to hectoring predicable rants from assorted lefties wanting to speak their brains to a captive audience. Trott was perfectly correct to keep these people from disrupting the meeting.

"Rent-a-mob"? Not on your life.

The pols in question could prepare to meet the valid criticism of the Other Side. Politicians who can't defend their positions aren't up to the job. Maybe they had huge backing from out-of-district, let alone out-of-state interests who see government strictly as a means of enriching a few well-heeled plutocrats. Someone getting all of his guidance from corporate lobbyists isn't paying attention to his constituents. So long as we have geographic districts, our politicians need to serve constituents.

Deciding who gets to address him? It is reasonable to ask that those who ask the questions be from his district. If I am from Ohio or even from some other district of Michigan and have a concern about global warming on the ground that global warming might hurt crop yields, then I am the wrong person to ask the question. So if someone from Grand Rapids (not in his district)  asks that question, then he has cause to not answer it. 

On the other side, if that Representative is simply answering easy questions from supporters he is neglecting many of the people that he does not claim to represent, namely people who did not vote for him. Tough luck! He is stuck with such people.   

[pbrower2a]

"Rent-a-mob"? Not on your life.

I'll grant you that most of these protestors will not be paid to be their. Those organising and directing the protests will be paid of course but most of the rest will be the kind of people who engage in this kind of anti-social 'activism' for a hobby.

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I notice that those who engage in this kind of behaviour will frequently claim to be the voice of 'the people'. They are not, they represent themselves. The purpose of a townhall meeting is to allow constituents who want to learn his views on various issues to ask him questions, express their concerns and to hear what he has to say in response. The purpose is not to allow organised groups of far left activists to disrupt and hijack the event and turn it in to their own event.

Other people don't show up to these events so they can spend their time listening to loudmouth leftists rant and speak their brainz. If they had wanted to do that they could have just stayed at home and watched TV. As I said the Congressman is a big boy and part of his job is putting up with being heckled by these kind of people. However he has a responsibility to the majority of his constituents not to allow this kind of people wreck his townhalls for everybody else.

So once you win you get to stifle your opposition? That's how tyranny begins. The winners of such an election in which majority-of-the-majority ideologies push a near-majority into irrelevance and then cull the majority until the ruling clique, always a majority of a majority, becomes a tiny clique -- an oligarchy. Whether the clique begins as Bolsheviks (literally 'majoritarians') or a slave-owning plutocracy, one ends up with a dystopia.

If it was acceptable for people who lost to President Obama to keep reminding us that they are still here (No recreational sex! All for the few! Protect our scams! Guns, guns, guns! The Bible is unqualified truth! Pollution forever!), then what must we who dislike such an agenda do when some bare winners try to force such on us? Comply?

Donald Trump's idea of how to "Make America Great Again" is a dystopia. Maybe it is not this blatant



but it is close. Only the style has changed.

 

[pbrower2a]

"Rent-a-mob"? Not on your life.

I'll grant you that most of these protestors will not be paid to be their. Those organising and directing the protests will be paid of course but most of the rest will be the kind of people who engage in this kind of anti-social 'activism' for a hobby.

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I notice that those who engage in this kind of behaviour will frequently claim to be the voice of 'the people'. They are not, they represent themselves. The purpose of a townhall meeting is to allow constituents who want to learn his views on various issues to ask him questions, express their concerns and to hear what he has to say in response. The purpose is not to allow organised groups of far left activists to disrupt and hijack the event and turn it in to their own event.

Other people don't show up to these events so they can spend their time listening to loudmouth leftists rant and speak their brainz. If they had wanted to do that they could have just stayed at home and watched TV. As I said the Congressman is a big boy and part of his job is putting up with being heckled by these kind of people. However he has a responsibility to the majority of his constituents not to allow this kind of people wreck his townhalls for everybody else.

I love how the right hates free speech. Sad! Triggered People!

Freedom of speech is fundamentally about the freedom to listen. Left wing activists have the freedom to speak and to give others the opportunity to chose to listen to what they have to say. However freedom of speech doesn't mean that others are obliged to listen to what you have to say. Many may chose to listen to what someone else has to say instead.

That isn't good enough for these left wing 'activists'. It isn't enough that they have plenty of platforms that give people the opportunity to listen to them if they want to. Because that means that many millions of people will chose to ignore what they have to say and go listen to what someone else, for example a Republican Congressman, has to say instead. These foaming at the mouth 'activists'  hate this, which is why they like to do things like this, shouting their opponents down and forcing an unwilling audience to listen to what is on their brainz rather than listen to the speaker they chose to listen to.

It is this that lies at the heart of these far leftist's hatred of free speech.

Freedom of speech implies also the right to choose to what we listen. Freedom of speech does not imply the right to a sympathetic audience. Such people as superior officers in the military, teachers in a school and (with the recognition that anyone has the practical right to quit) bosses at work might have the prerogative to compel others to listen simply to receive commands, but even that power comes with commands from someone 'higher'. But that is as far as it goes. Ideally the elected official does not get the right to command me to believe something that I find abominable any more than I have the obligation to believe some lunatic ranting some expression of extreme self-righteousness. In a country in which people have the obligation to heed certain authorities on political issues, freedom and command are practically identical.

Do I have the right to command that you listen to Schubert's Octet for Winds and Strings? no. But I am  free to suggest it. (It is worth the time, nearly an hour, I assure you).  If I am reasonably good at persuasion I might convince you to listen to so delightful a piece of music.   

Now, do I have an obligation to hold unqualified faith that Donald Trump is the most wonderful leader that America has ever had? Hell no! People on the Right had no such obligation with Obama as President. You can tell me that Obama is the Devil's choice and that Trump is God's choice, for  I can turn that on its head.

Congressional Representatives who tell that an audience that the 47% of the electorate who 'failed' to vote for them are amoral, ignorant, or stupid for having 'failed' to vote for them deserve to be called to account. They have no right to a compliant audience, and if they insist upon that they get a reputation for arrogance. 

There are practically no definitive truths in political discourse. There is only a transitory reality that can result from electoral politics, and there is precedent. 

[pbrower2a]

Pbrowera2a

If a group of people went to the performance of a play with the intention of shouting at the actors, screaming insults heckling and interrupting it would be recognised that this was an abuse of those audience members who had come to watch and listen to the production and who would be unable to do so because of this behaviour. Further more one wouldn't expect the theatre managers to tolerate such abuse of their audience.

But politics is not a Shakespeare play or a Broadway musical (or an opera, ballet, or musical concert) in which people expect to be entertained and then go on their way.

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American politics (and British political life) are not as scripted as a play, concert, opera, or ballet. Even a courthouse trial of an alleged serial killer has its rules; one does not get away with such disorderly conduct as shouting "Free this innocent person" or "Just hang him!" while a trial is in session. It is more analogous to a sporting event in which one can boo the substandard performance of a star athlete. Those who voted for the incumbent politician and still support him are not the only ones who have a stake in the political order.  Politics isn't entertainment even if it might have its stirring drama or even low entertainment; it is how many big questions like regulation and taxes are resolved.

If a politician is making choices insensitive to the needs and interests on behalf of either out-of-district interests or a rigid ideology, then maybe he needs to be shaken up a bit.

If you like staged politics in which the people simply do as their (fraudulently) elected officials and the puppeteers behind them tell them to tell us to do, then you support a dictatorship.

[pbrower2a]

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American politics (and British political life) are not as scripted as a play, concert, opera, or ballet. Even a courthouse trial of an alleged serial killer has its rules; one does not get away with such disorderly conduct as shouting "Free this innocent person" or "Just hang him!" while a trial is in session. It is more analogous to a sporting event in which one can boo the substandard performance of a star athlete.

Oh for the good old days of the 18th and 19th centuries when politics was heavily influenced by mob violence. Whata shame we don't have more of that <sarcasm>

It would be terrible if one side decided that after winning one election, then that side could then decree that political life could only go its way. People can click their heels and obey, and quit challenging the facile statements of political hacks who are to face no further meaningful challenges.

That's how Putin does things in Russia, and that is how Trump is trying to do things in America.

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If a politician is making choices insensitive to the needs and interests on behalf of either out-of-district interests or a rigid ideology, then maybe he needs to be shaken up a bit.

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It's anything but antisocial to seek redress for grievances. Politicians need to know when their majority support evaporates. I'm not suggesting that people charge the stage or assault the politician. The Right has been doing what it does not accept from the Left. When conscience meets a politician that goes bad due to deceit, corruption, or fanaticism, then conscience wins or freedom erodes.  It takes time. We have rigidly-scheduled elections in America. We do not have the parliamentary vote of no confidence.

I'm beginning to believe that the British system would work better here than does ours. We rejected a British-style parliament because the British Parliament of the time of George III was full of his lackeys, many from the 'rotten boroughs'. That is over. Donald Trump would not win a vote of no confidence today.

Don't you find it troubling that he admires Vladimir Putin more than he admires Margaret Thatcher?  

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Nobody is calling for a lynching. We want our politicians to know that we no longer like their political priorities. We want them to realize that they can be defeated in the next election, and we want their constituents to recognize that, too.

Right-leaning protesters against Barack Obama were scared that he was establishing a permanent majority. Left-leaning protesters today may be scared of dictatorial tendencies of the President.

Nobody has an obligation to remain silent about political trends when they get ominous.  

[pbrower2a]

Republicans broke Town Halls in 2009-2010. Democrats literally copied their playbook.

It's probably a bad thing that getting your message heard means making this Congressman and his staff's lives a living hell for several weeks, but what can be done about it?

This is a consequence of political polarization that started about 20 years ago.  What happened to Obama and Congressional Democrats by design of the Right in 2009 and 2010 has happened to Trump and his Congressional majority. If Republicans attacked President Obama for what he was, Democrats attack Trump for what he does. It has taken much less time for Democrats to cut into Trump support.

Elected pols cannot assume that they can win 52-47 elections indefinitely without trying to cut into the 47. It is not the fault of the opposition that it does not share the core beliefs of those that they do not vote for.

The 47% of the vote against most politicians is relevant. It used to be that constituent service mattered greatly; now ideology and contributor service are  seemingly everything.

It does not help Republicans in the House and Senate that Donald Trump is so unpopular. Gardner in Colorado and Ernst in Iowa have low approval ratings. Was 2014 a freak year? Not after the 2016 election.  Of course they are not up for re-election until 2020.

[pbrower2a]

No easy time in Utah

Constituents booed and heckled Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) Friday evening at a town hall meeting in Salt Lake City, where audience members questioned him on issues including immigration and President Donald Trump’s Russia ties.

More than 1,000 people attended Friday’s town hall at West High School, the first held in the state since Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) claimed protesters at a forum he held in February were paid. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that members of the audience frequently shouted at Stewart to “do your job,” called him a “liar” and asked “who are you in bed with?” They also held up signs that read “agree” or “disagree” to show the congressman how they felt about his responses to questions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chris-stewart-town-hall_us_58dfb399e4b0b3918c83e79e?2r4nqtka1hismunmi&&

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Fake driver's licenses? On short notice?

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Attendees chat "you lie" to Joe "You Lie" Wilson (R-SC02)

Payback can be  nasty even when it fits.

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Senator Tom Cottonmouth? It could hardly happen to a more deserving pol.

 

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Raul Labrador: "Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care".  Gets an earful in response:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/06/nobody-dies-because-they-dont-have-access-to-health-care-gop-lawmaker-says-he-got-booed/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.ca56f084f3ee

One doesn't have to be a paid protester to boo that sort of statement.

[pbrower2a]

Just when you think the bar can't get any lower, Rep. Tom Garrett said this at a town hall:

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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/332715-gop-rep-trump-small-potatoes-compared-to-nazi-germany

If you can make valid comparisons of anything to Hitler, Nazis, Stalin, Assad (either one), any of the Kim dynasty, ISIS, or Saddam Hussein... you have something very bad.

I don't know this man's electoral history, but America voted in some real losers in 2010.