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.
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.
Why do people think republicans care at all about this? Or that republicans voters will suddenly start having a problem with this?
Republicans are facing historic high prices, too. They can blame Biden, pretend it’s not happening, but at the end of the day, they’re feeling the pain too and they’re getting pissed off. Might be the only thing to make them turn on Dear Leader…
The German people did not abandon Hitler even as their cities turned to ash.
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.
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.
Especially when this attitude has basically gotten them everything they want.
Has it though?
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.
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.
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!
AOC and Bernie in Colorado Friday. Greeley at 1pm and downtown Denver Civic Center Park at 4pm
How about Schumer, anyone force him to grow a spine yet? They going to throw shade about not representing constituents they should tread lightly.
