Summary
Democrats are holding town halls in Republican districts, highlighting GOP lawmakers’ absence by leaving empty chairs on stage.
Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan hosted a town hall with an empty chair for absent Republican Derrick Van Orden, drawing 300 attendees in a town of 4,500.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ former running mate, has also held events in GOP areas, calling Elon Musk a “dipshit” and a “South African nepo baby.”
Republicans, facing backlash over Trump’s federal program cuts, have avoided in-person events, citing disruptive protests. Democrats, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are hosting events nationwide, while the DNC plans billboards urging constituents to demand town halls.
… Musk as a “dipshit” and a “South African nepo baby.”
I get the move of playing up the “otherness” of Musk to try and destabilize his support, and it may even be the right move for building support in xenophobic areas.
But it doesn’t sit well with me. It reinforces a “good immigrant/bad immigrant” view that harms us all, immigrants or native-born.
How about Schumer, anyone force him to grow a spine yet? They going to throw shade about not representing constituents they should tread lightly.
Hell I called both my NY senators and told them they lost my votes and I’ll welcome any primary challenger.
I love to see it. Notice how the progressive wing is out here doing this stuff while the moderates are busy trying to take such a high road that they’ve wandered off to the side in a hypoxic stupor. Let’s fucking go, I want to see even more of this!
Seeing 6% of a town’s entire population show up is impressive. As is the use of empty chairs to highlight the absence of the Nazi bedwetters. I also like the confrontational language like “Dipshit” used against an oligarch. We need to keep this momentum up.
If you had told me a year ago that one party had to stop holding town halls because they were afraid of their constituents, I would’ve assumed it would’ve been about heavily armed far-right militias intimidating Democrats. People can downplay it but it does seem kinda significant to me that Republicans have effectively been deplatformed by their own constituents, even if the specific example in the article (a town of 4,500 people) is pretty insignificant. Combined with the narrative shifting to, “things will get materially worse in the short term, but that’s good, actually,” it’s starting to shape up to a potentially big shift in the midterms.
In every town hall that republicans cancel, the democratic challengers should host one instead. Same place. Same time.
Why do people think republicans care at all about this? Or that republicans voters will suddenly start having a problem with this?
I think that’s the issue–the current ‘Republicans’ in the Executive Office don’t give a single shit if any of the smaller Republicans can ever return to their home districts. They are plundering all the bank vaults of government and keeping as much as they can for themselves. It’s a party made up of powerful narcissists–the only thing keeping any of them in check is the greater power of other narcissists. They will eat each other once they’ve eaten all of us.
The issue with any of this is that we’re assuming that we’ll have another election in four years, and I’m not so sure about that.
Hope? Belief that we are still all people at the end of the carnage?
Republicans have been this way for 30 years, if not longer. How can anyone still have hope they’re going to change? Especially when this attitude has basically gotten them everything they want.
Maybe I should visit the congressional gym. Apparently they act like ordinary people there.
I already said I bet D&R pols are probably like lawyers, viciously attacking each other in court, having martinis and golf after.
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Especially when this attitude has basically gotten them everything they want.
Has it though?
Are you not aware that they have control of the entire federal government and most of the states?
Right, but have the voters actually gotten what they wanted, policy-wise?
No, and they never do. But that doesn’t stop them from voting Republican.
They fall in line, not in love. They’re never not going to vote Republican.
I know several people who have voted republican and now vote democrat
Or that republicans voters will suddenly start having a problem with this?
They already do; that’s why the GOP stopped doing town halls. For all their talk about fiscal responsibility Republican voters really don’t want anybody touching their social welfare. This might flip a few seats in Congress if there’s still democracy at the end of all this.
They’ll forget about it by next year. Or they’ll vote Republican anyway because they fall in line and not in love, as the saying goes.
Those seats will flip because more Dems will vote. Every time we expect republicans to be decent people they disappoint.
And then two years later the Dems won’t be mad and the seats will flip back.
It’s been doing this my entire life.
AOC and Bernie in Colorado Friday. Greeley at 1pm and downtown Denver Civic Center Park at 4pm
”I want to make sure people know their members should not be voting for cuts to Medicaid,” Khanna said on Fox 11 Los Angeles on Tuesday.
“We’re filling a void that’s left open by our Republican colleagues who are too scared to show up to town halls in their own districts because they’re doing things that are not popular,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told reporters during the Democrats’ annual retreat in Leesburg, Virginia.The enjoyment of owning the GOP for being absent in these dark times doesn’t compare to meeting the MAGA reps head on. This feels like the democrats are just starting their campaigns for the next election cycle. I understand the long term benefits, but I’d rather see immediate action in Washington and at the state level.
The strength of this move is the empty chair. It is one thing to not have town halls. That is easy to forget and go, business as usual. It is another to have a town hall by the opposing party and have it highlighted that they are willing to meet to discuss but your elected representative was not. It highlights the deficit instead of allowing it to be overlooked.
Would be nice to see some advertising campaign comparing representatives to dads that left to get some milk and never came back.
They can’t pass legislation, this is the most effective thing they can be doing right now. Ideally it will rile up GOP voters to ditch their representatives if they feel ignored and abandoned by them. At the least it will put pressure on GOP reps to be more accountable to their constituents.
wow. what an impressive uprise. strong move to fight back against facism. dems great. LOL
no seriously, what is this shit? aoc holding up a sign “lies” when facist leader laughs in senate? thats not how to actually do something.
What do you suggest they do? Keep in mind that direct action and violence is exactly what the regime is waiting for, so that they can invoke the Insurrection Act.
to chill and wait it out.
As usual, the Democrats pat themselves in the back after achieving fuck all.
🙄
