Republicans who back Trump get an earful at raucous town halls
Booing crowds, a man jabbing his finger and swearing -- it is not easy these days for some Republican members of Congress as they face their constituents in town halls dominated by rage over President Donald Trump's radical cost-cutting policies.
And while Republican politicians risk running into loud and angry voters, Democratic lawmakers have found themselves getting berated in public for not doing enough to oppose Trump.
The ill-tempered landscape reflects the level of polarization in the United States just two months into Trump's second presidency.
At one such town hall gathering this month in Asheville, North Carolina, congressman Chuck Edwards was jeered by people demanding he explain his support for Trump, who has fired off multiple executive orders to shrink the federal government and axed legions of civil servants.
At one point, a man in the crowd stood up, pointed his finger at Edwards and screamed, berating him over some of the many spending cuts Republicans plan to carry out in the coming months.
"You're lying. I'm a veteran and you don't give a fuck about me. You don't get to take away our rights," the man yelled. Edwards signaled for security to escort him out of the meeting.
In Wyoming, a conservative pro-Trump state in the West, Republican lawmaker Harriet Hageman also had a rough time as she met with constituents in her district.
As people whistled at her and held up hostile signs, Hageman said she got the message. According to the local outlet Wyofile, one man at the meeting then said to her, "Fuck you! That's what we're saying."
- 'Paid agitators' -
In recent weeks, these town hall meetings -- meant for lawmakers in congressional recess to confer with the people who put them in office -- have become echo chambers of angst.
They have emerged as a key way for Americans to express opposition to Trump as he also enacts his anti-immigrant, anti-trans, nationalist and right-wing agenda.
At the start of his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump faced huge demonstrations against him. But this time around, since he returned to office America's streets have been relatively quiet.
Trump has made clear he wants to move quickly and aggressively with all his executive orders, aimed among other things at gutting or even eliminating some departments altogether as part of a small-government, laissez-faire conservative theory of governance.
So many town hall meetings are turning into anti-Trump shouting matches that Republican Party officials are telling their lawmakers to just stop holding them, US media have reported.
On Sunday, Trump embraced a theory first advanced by his press team that people who speak out against him at these meetings are "agitators" paid by the Democrats.
"The room was 'littered' with Radical Left Lunatics, mostly Democrats, and all they did was scream, shout and use filthy language. They were largely paid agitators, with fake signs and slogans, and were only there to make TROUBLE!" Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social, refering to the Edwards meeting.
- 'Fighting oligarchy' -
After Republicans put out the word to stop holding such meetings, Democrats swooped in to hold town halls of their own in Republican districts.
"While Republicans continue to run and hide from their constituents, Democrats are stepping up and meeting them face to face to ensure they know it's Trump, Elon Musk and their MAGA minions in Congress making their lives harder," the Democratic National Committee said Monday, referring to Trump's ever-present billionaire advisor and the slogan "Make America Great Again."
But Democrats are also facing angry constituents who complain their party has been too quiet and passive as Trump and Musk carry out what critics call a lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy.
"They should try actually fighting for once. They should try to actually be the opposition party," one man told CNN as he attended a town hall Friday called by Democratic congressman Sean Casten in Illinois.
With so many people livid with the Democratic Party and its leaders, some on the American left are trying to step up and lead the opposition to Trump.
Senator Bernie Sanders, 83, has embarked on a nationwide "fighting oligarchy tour."
He has been joined by another prominent progressive, the much younger congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
They have drawn tens of thousands of people eager to fight Trump and the Republican agenda.
It remains to be seen if this opposition energy will eat away at Trump and help the Democrats in isolated special elections on April 1.
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