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A Partial Video Collection of Town Halls From the Past Week [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-24

The House of Representatives was out of session and out of DC last week. Members went to their home districts and held public town halls. The results were…uneven at best. Below are a collection of a few videos and snippets. A larger view summary of what I see: the members seem to not be as concerned as EVERYONE ELSE IN AMERICA. They seem almost blasé. We, the People seem…well, we seem pretty dang pissed off.

Do they not see what we see because they are in the middle of the forest and can only see trees? It seems that We, the People have a difference perspective. We, the People seem to be genuinely concerned about the very fabric of this country, that liltte idea, as twisted and convoluted as it is these days, called democracy.

Without further ado:

First, Rep. Rich McCormick, (R, Ga), who faced an angry mob who at one point started chanting “Shame!” at him. He tried to blame was going on on Biden, Democrats and a lack of support for a bipartisan bill that he says would reign in executive orders. It was about as disingenuous and cynical an argument as he could use.

Here’s another view of the exchange that shows the Representative smugly leaning on the podium and just smiling, like, “Oh Bless your heart, aren’t you cute.”

x x YouTube Video Next, a public school teacher makes an empassioned plea to Rep. Paul Tomko to DO SOMETHING, going as far as saying that if the Representative were to engage in John Lewis’s famous “good trouble,” and got arrested for protesting, he would get arrested with him. Tomko, meanwhile sits in an easy chair on stage looking at the teacher in an almost detached, unworried manner. It’s like he can’t feel the teacher’s passion, like it doesn’t matter. That is worrisome.

x View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts)

Wisconsin Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald tried to use the phrase “fraud and abuse” in his remarks and was immediately mocked. You can see a hint of fear on his face - his chin quivers when he hears the reaction. One constituent says Congress should subpeona Musk - that sounds like an excellent idea. Wisconsin Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald tried to use the phrase “fraud and abuse” in his remarks and was immediately mocked. You can see a hint of fear on his face - his chin quivers when he hears the reaction. One constituent says Congress should subpeona Musk - that sounds like an excellent idea.

x

Rep. Glenn Grothman, Republican of Wisconsin, says that the current administration has done “some very good things,” and is them summarily booed. He says, incorrectly, to be clear, which means he’s lying because as a Representative he would know that he’s lying, that President Trump has gotten rid of birthright citizenship. The President has tried, but that hasn’t actually happened.

x YouTube Video

The list could go on, but I haven’t found any that show anything significantly different. If you have, please leave it in the comments. But the fact is, We, the People are scared, angry, and want answers, if not a stop, to the soft coup that is happening in Washington. I don’t want to oversimplify, but our representatives, on the other hand, don’t seem all that interested in what their constituents are saying. They aren’t listening. When representatives stop listening, they are no longer actually representing us. That, my friends, is a problem.

So my question is - for those us not in the system, not in DC, who only get hints at what is going on through the news, are we actually getting told the truth? Or is the media stirring us all up unnecessarily? The way these representatives fail to seem all that alarmed is remarkably different than how many of the rest of us feel. Or is it because the representatives are too close, to deep in the trees and can’t the forest the way we can? Because from my perspective, I see a lot of smoke coming from forest.

I can’t help but think of the musical Hamilton, when Jefferson, Burr and Madison realize that they are at a strategic disadvantage relative to Hamilton and are trying to find a way to fight back:

[BURR]

Somebody has to stand up to his mouth!



[JEFFERSON]

If there’s a fire you’re trying to douse



[MADISON AND JEFFERSON]

You can’t put it out from inside the house.

Apologies for the strange presentation of the IG videos — I tried cutting and pasting, embedding, etc. and couldn’t get it to present properly.

Originally published (with nicer looking links) here.

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