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.
I suspect that is some sort of sunk cost falacy combined with a narative that says only he can get the bad things to stop; once it get’s to the point that your cities are being destroyed, you probably wont, and certainly wont have the opportunity to, change leader. It’s critical that as many minds as possible are changed before getting to that stage.
I have a friend of a friend, I’ll call him RustGamer, who is a 3 time Trump voter. He marched with me last Friday for the 50501 Veterans protests. The week before he learned for the first time since it’s occurrence that two people died on J6. He was willing to read the Jack Smith report and was deeply troubled by it.
Sure there are some absolute shitmunchers and some so deluded they’re unsaveable. But for some, these people are misled, or downright brain washed.
Rustgamer has no technical literacy outside of Rust. He watched whatever Facebook, Instagram, or ticktock pushed. And of course fox news since that’s what his parents taught him. He wasn’t good at searching for dissenting opinions because Google would just push him more propaganda sites when trying to, sponsored search results are evil.
He’s been in a different reality for the last decade and is just now waking up. It took a lot of talking, a lot of biting my tongue, and showing him I a “radical leftist” actually wanted what’s best for both of us. It’s not easy and I completely understand if people aren’t in a mental place to do it with what’s going on. But we only get through this if we do it together.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
I don’t even like talking to people in the first place.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
Ugh don’t remind me. Dealing with a bunch of psychotic apes is my least favorite part of existence.
Well, a number of them in Montana flipped to block an anti-trans bill: https://thepulp.org/montana-republicans-flip-to-defeat-anti-trans-bills/ (just a semi-random link to the story, there are many other sources). Some of them can be persuaded to change their minds. Perhaps not many, or by much, but it is possible.
JD Vance turned from criticising Trump to licking his boots. Does that count?
