ELECTED REPUBLICANS IN the US are learning that voter anger works both ways.
While many were elected on a wave of discontent brought about their supporters’ dissatisfaction with Barack Obama, they’re now finding that many people in their districts aren’t happy with Trump either.
It’s meant a difficult tightrope for lawmakers to traverse as they attend town hall meetings to be confronted with angry constituents and formidable protests.
Representatives like Marsha Blackburn who returned to her Tennessee district and was greeted by tough questions and protests at a town hall about 30 miles from Nashville.
“I have always said, you may not agree with me, but you’re always going to know where I stand,” Blackburn told the protesters outside Fairview City Hall afterward.
“Having a good, solid, respectful debate, that is something that serves our country well.”
In Arkansas, a seven-year-old boy took Republican Senator Tom Cotton to task about Trump’s border wall.
“Donald Trump makes Mexicans not important to people who are in Arkansas who like Mexicans, like me my grandma and all my family,” the child said.
“And deleting all the part of PBS Kids, just to make a wall. He shouldn’t do that,” he added.
Even the most powerful member of the US Senate faced jeers from nearly 1,000 as he arrived to address a group of local business leaders.
In Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, they chanted as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell entered in a black limousine.
McConnell said he was “proud” of the demonstrators for expressing their views but told the mostly friendly audience inside that the protesters “had their shot,” adding:
Winners make policy and the losers go home.
One person in the audience was particularly angry and her excoriation of McConnell has gone viral.
“The last I heard, these coal jobs are not coming back and now these people don’t have the insurance they need because they’re poor,” the woman said.
In Virginia, Representative David Brat was on the receiving end of constituent angst about the Trump administration.
Protesters and supporters crowded a restaurant conference room in Blackstone where Brat fielded questions for about hour.
He was loudly heckled and booed when he defended President Trump and his policies on health care and immigration, with the occasional cheer from supporters of his positions on gun rights and fewer regulations.
The former economics professor said he enjoyed the feisty give and take.
“People are very nervous and anxious after the Trump win. So my goal tonight is to help allay some of those anxieties,” Brat said.
A month into Trump’s presidency, protests continue over his immigration policies, Cabinet selections and the GOP’s push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
At the town halls, Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act came up frequently. Particularly their lack of a plan to replace it.
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Conservative East Texas congressman Louie Gohmert cancelled his town hall and claimed protests would “threaten public safety.”
Instead, Gohmert said he is holding “telephone town halls” in which he said he can communicate with thousands in the time it takes for him to appear live before 30 to 100 constituents.
Several Republicans have taken a similar tack and opted against holding public town halls, instead organising conference calls or meeting privately
About 18,000 callers participated in a telephone town hall in Chicago.
President Trump himself has responded directly to the town hall problems, decrying them as being “planned out by liberal activists”.
- With reporting by Rónán Duffy
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