Yves here. I had thought there was a tiny glimmer of hope for Team Dem digging itself out of its ditch, with the adoption of “die ins” in New York City (they’d been effective mobilizers of people and opinion in the Black Lives Matter day) and apparent fierce internal criticism over Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries playing dead in the face of the Trump onslaught. Mind you, this slight signs of life come as a NBC poll showed both that Democratic party garnered its worst approval ratings ever and it voters 2 to 1 wanted the party to contest Trump actions, and that does not mean the lame fundraiser “fighting for you” sort.
Via e-mail from IM Doc, evidence the party is probably beyond redemption. Keep in mind the action described below took money as well as organizational resources. Subject line Local Meeting with US Representative:
This was on Friday night. The paper reported it as highly contentious. I have now seen on a few national websites that she was owned by the Dems.
So, let me tell you what really happened. And any shred of respect I have for any media, local or national, is now completely gone. When you see things with your own eyes – and then read the completely bullshit reporting about it the next few days after the event.
The town itself is bright blue – the surrounding area – basically everything is bright red. Our family lives to [a bit out of town in the red area]. It is not only red – but everyone is clean cut, blue-eyed, athletic, farmers etc. This area is also very conservative from a religious perspective.
I wanted my kids to see a town hall. So we went.
I knew something was wrong the minute we hit the parking lot. There were 8 busses there – I saw CA, WA, OR, and CO license plates. None local. There were another 3 busses in the restaurant parking lot next door – again CA and WA.
We walked into the auditorium – literally SRO. There were all kinds of people NONE of us had ever seen before – purple hair nose rings etc. Clearly not locals. And when the first question was asked by an elder statesman kind of guy on the front row – and 2 of these nose rings got up and started F bombs and screaming and yelling – all the locals knew instantly that something was up. They kept being told there were children in the room, etc.
And the literal dozens/hundreds of these people just kept right on. No one could hear answers, every single question was met with name-calling screaming and yelling, they used the c-word and the f-word constantly, and there was no respect for anyone that was a local. It was a completely useless event – and I was ashamed for my kids.
The thing is there were people standing right next to us – that I know personally – they have legitimate issues about various issues that would have been against the Trump narrative – and would have been very important for her to answer and have accountability. They were not even interested in standing up and facing the onslaught. The man even told me – they were very much hesitating to be Trump voters going forward – but wow – we can’t let these wackos in charge.
Discussions over this weekend have indicated to me that really really pissed people off – any fence sitters are now squarely in the Trump camp. Local people do not take to hijacking like that very well – and constantly calling a woman a cunt in front of kids in a rural area is not a good look.
So, I cannot even take my kids to a town hall. After this debacle, I doubt there are any further town halls – and more importantly – I CANNOT BLAME THEM. It really is a societal collapse.
And I am so ashamed of what the Democratic Party now is. What a complete and total disgrace. But the media is reporting that she met “highly contentious” constituents. What a complete joke. What a bunch of liars. I cannot think of a better way for the Dems to cement Trump support all over the fruited plain.
I quizzed IM Doc. He lives in a very popular vacation destination. Could the influx have been in part due to the ease of persuading Dems to make a trek and then enjoy the sights? His response:
Similar reports, probably the same people, coming from multiple other places in this state. One can charitably refer to those locations as armpits so vacations are not in the cards.
Also, hearing very similar reports from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas from family members. Similar reports of lots of pissed off people among the independent minded. As I said, the family next to me at our meeting had an issue that would have really raised eyebrows and I would have loved to hear the answer. But alas, f bombs were more important. I guess it is the new 50 state strategy. No wonder they are at the lowest approval rate in modern history.
Back in the stone ages of 1960s civil rights protests, black activists made a point of wearing their Sunday best when marching. The privileged Dems have gotten so accustomed to thinking that they are in charge that they continue to assume that they should be listened to as a matter of right and don’t need to stoop to showing respect for those on the other side, or are merely not entirely on board with the Team Dem agenda.
Needless to say, this does not bode well for effective opposition.
I would applaud Trump and Musk taking a vacation on Mars, but is it possible that these agitators were Repub actors? Karl Rove would have thought of that, for sure.
Nixon’s hardhats were well organized, violent disrupters of peaceful protests. They appeared far and wide, taking time off work (allegedly paid) to beat people up. The not-so-silent majority.
One of TomDispatch’s writers from CA spent the fall in Reno canvassing for Harris. I assume there were more than a few.
I should’ve added this link about Chuckie:
Schumer Postpones Book Tour Amid Backlash to Voting With Republicans NYT archive
He writes a book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” A deliberate attempt conflating anti Zionism with Antisemitism. Trump and the bipartisan AIPAC hoardes in Congress are full force on new McCarthyism.
Were the planned demonstrations the same thing as IM Doc’s townhall experience? Should Schumer get a pass to pump his screed while innocents are bombed? Was the postponement due to his voting with Republicans or was it anti Zionism and anti genocide?
They were being paid, or at least we still on the clock at work: a friend of mine who was there and baely escaped without getting clubbed spoke of the local Business Agents for the construction trades unions rounding up workers to attack the demonstrators. As he described it, the BAs were leading the charge.
The following week, Peter Brennan,the head of the citywide Construction and Trades Council was at the White House, giving Nixon an honorary hard hat.
Honestly, that was my first reading, too. People who know only how to be disruptive tend to be paid operatives. I saw it a lot in NYC back when I lived there. “Grassroots organizers” from groups that no one had ever heard of, but who were ostensibly and outlandishly liberal, would just shut down everything with lots of profanity and sloganeering. In NYC, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an earnest (albeit misguided) group educated on bumper stickers. There are a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands. However, it seems softheaded to squander an opportunity to have seemingly “normal” people from across America’s rural communities take their representatives to task. If it is the national Dems organizing these manufactured mobs, they need to seriously reconsider their tactics.
I agree my first take on the description was that they were paid agitators. Interestingly, I could also now see that as a DOGE tactic too. From what IM Doc described it shut down any real airing of grievances. Those early Townhalls that made the news showed real grievances being aired. Shutting down the townhall with paid outsiders almost guarantees the Dems to be fingered for it even if they didn’t do it. A win win for whomever wants the discussion shut down.
Indeed. Who was paying for those buses? Some of us had our doubts about how organic the BLM protests were. It’s funny how they simply ceased when Biden became president.
And my brother, fan of Rachel Maddow, might somewhat agree. Even he says that Trump is president because MSNBC spent the last four years talking about Trump instead of Biden. For those of us who prefer to stand aside from TV chat (and thanks again NC for being our corner of sanity) there’s the fear that the shallow and highly combative Trump will react to the charges of villainy by becoming that very thing (yesterday’s events in the ME quite ominous). Given his personality it may not take much encouragement.
my first thought also, too over the top
Also use of the C word points to them being paid agitators. That word is considered very misogynistic, especially in Dem circles.
Also I have seen footage of town halls where the unhappy people look like genuine vets. So counteracting that would be important if you were a republican operative
Hard to tell without more info. When I was in college, a very liberal classmate went to a pro-choice rally, or was protesting at a pro-life rally, I don’t remember exactly. I remember she came back in a very good mood after waving her sign that said “men who are against abortion can f— themselves”, which she thought was very clever. I remember remarking that if your goal was to convince people who weren’t on your side, maybe that wasn’t the best way to go about it. I also have a relative who keeps getting arrested in recent years at protests, mostly for being dumb. One was for defacing public property and assaulting a cop – basically he just started flailing wildly when the cops tried to get him to stop spray painting a statue. Kid couldn’t punch his way out of a wet paper bag, so not really a threat to anybody. I tried to tell him how to make a valid political point without getting caught and needing a parental bailout, so we’ll see if that sticks.
I was also in Seattle during the WTO protests in 1999. There were cops everywhere, and protests started out peacefully, with a big labor march if I remember right. Then the ‘black bloc’ types showed up and started smashing windows. Somehow those people never seem to get arrested even at times when you can’t swing a cat without knocking over a half dozen cops. Because they are cops themselves, trying to discredit a legit protest. But I also knew people personally who were not cops, but joined the fray anyway after the tear gas has started.
Plenty of history showing conservative types using operatives to discredit protests, and also plenty of times when protestors just act stupid.
Wow, that account of the meeting does not bode well for the establishment Dems. It seems they really are just “waiting for Trump to make a mistake…”
My cousin is right, I need more ammo. A lot more ammo.
The sooner the Democrat Party dies, the sooner something worthwhile may take its place.
This verbal goon squad tactic seems to be universal – I see it in Europe as well. Any legitimate questions and criticism towards purportedly liberal parties and politicians are quickly drowned by lots of obscenity and name-calling by groups of weird and aggressive people (mostly women, interestingly enough).
The end result is that screaming vulgarity and ad hominems has replaced public discourse.
It’s fine to see the Demos dying but we need to work on replacing it or else we’ll get more of the Neocons.
I wonder if it is possible to organize a town hall with only locals. To enter, you have to flash your drivers license or your County rates or some other ID showing a local address. Have a forum where locals can discuss local political issues. Of course I would expect to see a legal challenge by Dems on the grounds of discrimination or some such but I can see workarounds. The Republicans would not be a problem as they have told their people to refuse to go to town hall meetings. Come a long way since this though-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Speech_(painting)#/media/File:Freedom_of_Speech_-_Rockwell_alternate.jpg
The Dem smarties gaming town halls think it a brilliant strategy but all they are doing is aiding their party being sent into oblivion. And maybe that is where it belongs. But as for the media I will not share my thought here as NC has a language policy.
No, you can’t have a governmental meeting on that basis, and the Rep is operating in an official capacity. They have to be open to everyone. That is the law in pretty much every state. That is why I could go to and even speak at CalPERS board meetings, for instance.
CA has two laws, one that applies to state bodies (Bagley-Keene Act) and one to local (Brown Act).They are very similar and courts treat decisions made with respect to either one as a precedent for the other.
And so you don’t think these laws are artifacts of leftie states, see as an example, the Alabama Open Meetings Act: https://www.openmeetings.alabama.gov/generalpublic/publicdefault.aspx
But what you could do is to require out of town/whatever people to sit in a designated area so they can be easily recognized as such. Then their actions would represent their group. We also need reliable reporting on whether the groups (who could be seated separately for identification purposes) are “righties” or “lefties”. Seating, of course, must be convenient for everyone to the extent practical. There would be practical problems with implementation, but they could be addressed.
to be honest……people can easily tell who isn’t local, regardless of their political views.
Speech, slang, mannerisms, not being familiar w/local places or trivia….no one in their group is a friend of your cousin’s, buddy’s dog groomer.
But of course, you need roped-off sections to make it relatively scientific for replication purposes.
Interesting. Worth trying. BTW what Rev Kev suggested, I too thought of immediately when reading this. Will add – laws are laws, and many are being ignored and broken in favor of the rich and powerful. There must be a way to creatively ban this practice. There were a lot of busses in the parking lots So ban busses? Erect barriers that busses can’t navigate? There are possibilities which grow the you put your mind to it.
No, I doubt that would be permissible. The laws don’t allow for proof of residence to attend. “Interested parties” are typically allowed to testify in deliberative processes, and that does not mean just locals.
Here is a site with precedents state by state: https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-sections/a-is-there-a-right-to-participate-in-public-meetings/
Excuse the stupid question, but I am not from the USA. A town hall meeting is an officially sanctioned/sponsored event? Even funded by the Gov’t?
The government presumably uses a public building like a conference room at its City Hall. The only incremental costs would be extra power to have the lights, perhaps some extra toilet paper, and security (as in they would not normally be on duty and so would be owed overtime).
Calling these events “Town halls” is a fairly recent development. It’s just an event where an elected representative speaks directly with their constituents. It’s meant to give a small town, down home-y feel to the meeting, even if it’s held in a big city.
I believe the name is meant to invoke actual town meetings, which are still held in some small towns like the one where I grew up, and are a form of direct democracy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_meeting
Town hall is just a gabfest. Town meeting is how the town conducts its official business, and participation is limited to residents of the town.
Need to evict the people talking over the designated speaker. Sad to say, need more police on the overtime gravy train. Couple of police buses outside and 20 or the 30 cops. Eventually the paid actors will get tired of sitting in a jail cell. People that want to participate normally will still be able to.
If you are being paid while sitting in that cell, then it all washes. Plus, add in the fake “street cred” that being “oppressed by The Man” gives to most socially marginal people.
I’m now waiting for some ‘legitimate’ Brownshirts to be organized and start breaking heads. That is the next step in this escalation ladder.
Naw, the difficulty is in the first amendment – free speech. You can curse, insult, yell mean things and even yell “fire” in a crowded theater – that is all covered by free speech.
Could online town halls be formulated that sidestep a number of these problems?
They’re a lot easier to attend (even asynchronously), you can moderate them, and they introduce the ability to use tools that add value to the process.
We will pry Identity Politics from the Democrats cold-dead hands, as there is no thought or desire to enact policies that provide concrete material benefits to average Americans
The party is well paid to avoid any discussion of such benefits. C and f bombs usefully prevent such discussions. I’ve thought for years that voting for dem candidates prevents change.
Yeah, the core Democratic constituency is so tone deaf and clueless about how they come across to anyone outside their bubble.
I’ve been tracking the various fed news subreddits. One smallish thread talking about what Feds are doing to cut spending in anticipation of being downsized had a sad comment on cutting a $2,000 trip to a family wedding (with people jumping to suggest getting the rest of the family to crowd fund the trip), multiple “I’m cutting everything but getting another tattoo”, and multiple “so sad to cut my meal plan subscription”.🤨
Trump’s plan is absolute chaos and will pauperize tens of millions of Americans, but the #opposition we have is absolutely hopeless.
After a few days of really thinking hard about what we witnessed, I would like to add a few comments. The email above was done before serious contemplation.
We arrived just on time, but almost late. So, I did not get to see how people were arranging themselves when coming in. What I can tell you is the outside protestors had placed themselves all through the room. They were very evenly dispersed through the whole crowd. It was these people who when questions were being asked or statements made that they did not like would begin to be disruptive in their little area. It was therefore very difficult at times to hear the questions and the comments and the answers. There were a few times of mostly quiet when questions did come up about Social Security, the Post office, and lay offs. The agitators did not like the answers, I guess, so we could hear the questions – just not the answers. It is highly likely that the Congress person did not answer the questions well – but most of the people in the audience would have never known this. And when anyone would try to get them to shut up, they just became more rowdy. And again profanity was common.
Is this now a common way for protesters/agitators to disrupt meetings? I have never seen this before and I am genuinely curious.
If you read the media accounts, one would get the idea that there was a lot of resistance to the Congressperson. I have no idea. And I certainly could not tell from what was going on. There were lots of supportive things said that were instantly screamed and yelled at by these same people. Most importantly, none of these people ever bothered to ask a question or make a statement. They were just all through the audience disrupting things. So we got to see a lot of that – making no impact but making everyone angry. Meanwhile, there were actual constituents with real issues who likely would have made a real impact among their neighbors who did not engage after the performative stuff started. Again, it was these fellow constituents who very likely would have opened eyes – but it was more important to have drama. And trust me, these folks have issues, I would have loved to hear from my Representative. But we were not allowed to.
So I am hearing on the media from all over the country – that the GOP house members are being “owned” in these meetings. I cannot speak for them all – I only attended one – and that reporting was most certainly not the case where I was. The neighbors around are still talking about the spectacle today. What was being owned was the outrageous behavior of these agitators or whatever you want to call them. Their behavior likely very much decreased any anti-Trump narrative discussion that could have happened. And the Congressperson could have been held to account for things that were never discussed because of all the chaos.
I am deeply disturbed. We have even turned our town halls into a twitter comment cluster. Ad hominem name calling and profanity. If this is the way it will be, I have no desire to attend one again. And I doubt they will happen much longer. And now I and so many others, non-GOP, know that the current meme that the GOP are afraid to face their people is really not true. And again, this one I attended was not constituent driven. So, if that is the case, what is the purpose? Again a sign of societal collapse. We cannot even seem to talk to one another – we are on a different wave length.
The one person in my life who usually does talk about things like this meeting is not saying much. That would be my wife. She who grew up as a little girl in The Cultural Revolution. She told me this AM when looking over this post – “I have already seen this show, and unfortunately, I know how it ends.”
>>>If you read the media accounts, one would get the idea that there was a lot of resistance to the Congressperson.
TIkTok/social media has been awash with videos of accusations by “political Normies” and right-of-center folks of out-of-town astro-turfing of hyper-local political events.
I doubt that the events of the town hall will surprise the staffers in that Congressperson’s office…..maybe might have shaken the Congressperson that afternoon, but once a 20-something aide explained “what TIkTok said” I doubt that the disruption made any difference. IMO. YMMV.
Anyone with money can disrupt any town hall meeting around the world. The costs to do that are barely a drip in the bucket.
And then the media gaslights people who did attend to present the preferred narrative. All highly disconcerting.
Was there any local media coverage? Is anyone tracking the bus caravan(s)?
How much time have you spent west of the Mississippi? Population density is low and the distances between meaningful sized cities are large. Just look at the driving distances from Portland, OR to Seattle, San Francisco and not very large Boise, ID, which is smaller than the very very much secondary SE Asian city I live in now.
Something tells me that with those agitators, that they did a training course for it. You report that they rocked up in buses from interstate but then they spread themselves out instead of clustering in the groups that they arrive with (I assume). And training implies instructors and financing and it would not surprise me if those activists were being paid as well. And somebody would have paid for those buses and the fuel that they used. And as they came from different States, then this is a standardized training program being used in different States. So who is picking up the tab for all this?
You just described a classic Psyop.
Arrest the usual suspects.
It would not surprise me if the US Chamber of Commerce is behind this.
Several years ago, when a group of citizens in my County were protesting the financing of the Braves stadium, we tried to show up at a local Board of Commissioners meeting where the issue of the bonds to finance the stadium (with public money) was going to be debated. When we got there, all the public speaking slots had been taken, even though it was only 5pm and the meeting wasn’t for another 2 hours.
It turned out that the Chamber of Commerce contacted employers and told them to give their employees the rest of the day off, and they got their early at 3p to take all the slots. Then they all showed up in Braves t-shirts to pack the audience and crowd out any organic “locals”. For all I know, many of the t-shirt brigade didn’t even live in the County.
One of my friends managed to grab a slot before the Chamber’s goons did, and he ended up getting arrested.
Well, yes and no. Yes, it is a sign of societal collapse.
But no, you still can talk to each others. That’s why outside agitators had been send to destroy communication.
Regards, Uwe
thanks for writing. The democratic party abandoned my part of the state some time ago – I don’t know the timing, maybe it was that transition from Dean’s 50 state strategy to the Obama borg operation.
But specifically, one of the things I often encounter is encapsulated in this sentiment: “Discussions over this weekend have indicated to me that really really pissed people off – any fence sitters are now squarely in the Trump camp.”
which I am sympathetic to – as I said, we’ve been left behind many years ago. However, i try to counter by saying politics and democratic republics aren’t like shopping, it’s not a “if you don’t have what I want I’m going to the shop across the street” – or it shouldn’t be. We have no agency in that case. We have to find ways to claim some agency and change what needs to change. Here we have the (not taught in schools) coal wars history as examples of the efficacy of collective action.
And if it seems too large a task than that maybe offers some pathway to recognizing how difficult it is for our representatives to do their jobs. Or what their jobs are in theory.
If we are citizens we have responsibilities to participate in our governance. As immensely frustrating (and I often think ultimately futile) as it is, we have to keep at it. I think both parties have to change. And I think we should be involved in that change as much as possible. I hope that the frustrations from the event spur some sort of increased participation in the governance of your part of the country. I hope that discouragement doesn’t win.
I’m going to read more if I can about such incidents.
But I get psyop vibes.
The kinds of things that were done to disrupt civil rights groups in the past.
A methodology for authoritarians to further disrupt any opposition from organizing.
“We have even turned our town halls into a twitter comment cluster. Ad hominem name calling and profanity.”
Yes, this has sadly been the case for several years. Even before the pandemic, I went to a lot of hearings and community meetings while living in NYC. Smaller events were still civil and filled with locals who knew each other. Larger events, particularly those that dealt with rezoning, would attract the locals whom I knew and a different kind of person. They had all the trappings of young liberals (piercings, dyed hair, etc.), showed up in groups, were exceptionally disruptive, and had absolutely nothing substantive to say. Most of them knew next to nothing about the community. To me, they were clearly paid operatives. By whom? I could never really figure that part out, but they seemed so obdurate and self-defeating that I began to feel like they were put there to make their opponents’ position look more reasonable.
I know this implies that all obnoxious people are paid actors or operatives meant to make “liberals” seem nuts. I don’t think that way. However, I do feel like this is widespread enough to suggest a concerted effort by someone and I have to believe that the national Democratic party is not stupid enough to think this is a good strategy to pursue universally. Then again, I have been known to be wrong.
“So, I did not get to see how people were arranging themselves when coming in. What I can tell you is the outside protestors had placed themselves all through the room. They were very evenly dispersed through the whole crowd. It was these people who when questions were being asked or statements made that they did not like would begin to be disruptive in their little area.”
Sounds exactly like the agit-prop from the small group of Trotskysts during student meetings and assemblies, back then at university, 30 years ago. Disruptive idiots with nothing constructive to say, just wanting to disrupt stuff when we were trying to have civil discussion about our grievances and how we planned to act and to be heard by local authorities. They were all over the hall, never sitting close to one another, and after a handful of such meetings you knew every single one of them – and when one stood up or raised his voice, you immediately went into “Oh shh, here we go again” mode.
Looks like the modus operandi has been passed down the generations of useless tools.
hmmmm. That’s interesting. Maybe the Dem estab, having decided to offer no concrete material benefits to their (ever shrinking) voting base, has settled on theatrics. All circus, no bread. / ;)
There are ways to take on what the T admin is doing, like Garland Nixon’s Fisking of the T admin. Dem estab isn’t doing that.
There’s not enough information in your account for me to go on. Who were the agitators? What, aside from ad hominems, were they yelling? I’ve been involved in organizing disruptions of Dem events before (the c-word would not have been tolerated), during the election, trying to publicly shame pro-israel or ‘moderate’ dems. I don’t think it’s often a very effective tactic, but it is not, in my experience, an insider one.
“Is this now a common way for protesters/agitators to disrupt meetings? I have never seen this before and I am genuinely curious.”
There has been a rash of this kind of thing in recent years. Most regular city council meetings in the area where I live allow for public comments on any topic whether it’s on that week’s agenda or not. Once meetings started being online a few years back, people started calling in and cursing up a storm – https://www.pressherald.com/2020/04/06/trolls-are-disrupting-online-public-meetings/ My better half had to deal with this when she was an elected official. A lot of the time the people calling in were just spewing curses for no apparent reason – anti-semitic rants that had no relation to anything being discussed at the meeting. At first nobody knew who any of these callers were, but I’ve heard that some did actually identify themselves as locals, and recently one showed up in person packing heat. I failed to see the point of any of this since most of the time they didn’t seem to be disrupting anything in particular – just showcasing their faux Tourette syndrome for the sake of it.
Holy Family Blog…..the tin-foil videos (from right of center, complete with footage of out-of-state buses and vans) about institutional astro-turfing support at Democratic events during the 2024 election was 100% right.
I make it a point to never initiate talk about politics to strangers….but have had many fun, interesting conversations with random people as we wait in line, etc.
From this barometer….what’s worse than love-hate? apathy! Normies have 100% given up on Democrats. They don’t necessarily support Trump, but they are done w/DC Dems. And IMO, that’s even worse long-term for DC Dems.
Once people drop out of political engagement, they are gone in the wilderness. Just like a business w/customers….it’s much easier to retain/rectify an existing customer than fishing for a new one.
For at least the last 15 years I’ve remained a registered Democrat only because NYS is a closed primary state. I had my most fun ever voting in 2014 when Zephyr Teachout ran in the Dem primary for governor. She got over 30% of the vote and must have scared the sh!t out of the establishment. I wish she’d run again as I’d suspect she might be able to pull off a win absent flying in small planes.
Thanks for this post and comments.
For some reason I think this 30-year-old bit from John Cleese fits in here.
“John Cleese nailed it 30 years ago. Amazing how little things change. ”
https://x.com/joeroganhq/status/1901358019096584484
One thing seems to have changed in 30 years: some people are granting themselves leave to act like tantrum throwing children in public. Did Zoom meetings break their brains? / ;)
my favorite bit, still applicable to anything left of center, is the Judean People’s Front vs. the People’s Front of Judea…..same as it every was, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
This sounds like a psyop designed (and funded) to herd people into two separate sheep pens. The nose-rings feel like freedom riders, the locals feel alienated. The greatest mistake we make is thinking that the Democratic and Republicans are competing. They are not. They are sharing power.
I was seeing the same thing. It’s pretty texrbook.
Similar methids used to disrupt civil rights groups in the past.
It’s actually to keep any opposition to the current authoritarianism from organizing.
Agree with the keeping “any opposition to the current authoritarianism from organizing”, but between psy-op or own-goal, I’ll go with the latter. Team Blue is performative if/and nothing else.
Imagine the consternation having to devise a plan to protest authoritarianism, zionism, corporate domination, censorship, etc, when you softly support all those things yourself. Lol. Democracy is dead, and in retrospect, it appears to have passed some time ago.
The greatest mistake we make is thinking that the Democratic and Republicans are competing. They are not. They are sharing power.
No doubt, and the politics are simply sport to them– beneath the surface, friendly intramurals at most.
The Cluster-B hives nurtured by our ruling caste ensure that anyone who threatens real opposition to the status quo quickly gets swarmed and stung.
Meanwhile, ever more of the country’s wealth is funneled upward. See this most recent chart of wealth distribution in the US.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/
That a big change from 40 years ago. The 3rd Way neoliberal Dems have been a big part of the story. / ;)
It does have to be noted that “everyday people” are usually repping inadequate social paradigms. So are the blue hairs of course. But just because you can tell someone else is a moron doesn’t mean you aren’t a moron.
I have little respect for common people organizing because their whole ontology is usually completely worthless.
And how, pray tell, do those “ordinary people” learn such dysfunction? Are they born with it? Or are they taught it, and by whom, for whose benefit?
Blame the “victims.”
What an interesting and depressing post. Something similar is happening here in Germany. Today they discussed in our parliament a change of the constitution to enable an incredible amount of debt to be taken up to finance a coming war. It is the outgoing parliament , that has just been voted out – not the incoming parliament that is discussing that. A dirty trick by the establishment as there wouldn´t be enough votes in the new parliament.
This could have been prevented if the “Linke” (left party) had demanded the immediate convention of the new parliament. But then they would have been in the company of the AFD (right wing smeared as Nazis) who is also against the change of the constitution. Insanely they decided not to as that would meant being in cohorts with “Fascists”.
The best and smartest party in Germany the also leftist but sane party of Wagenknecht in vain urged the “Linke” to call for a convocation of the new parliament. One should add that Wagenknecht had left the “Linke” because she couldn´t take all the “woke” nonsense and pointless virtue signalling anymore. The establishment then engineered her defeat in the latest election. I can´t eat as much as I would like to puke.
It seems like the world has gone completely mad.
[putting on my tinfoil bonnet:]
Has the Davos crowd decided to use the Cloward-Piven strategy, not for the purpose of increasing the welfare safety net, but to crash the Euro by debt in order to usher in a new cashless digital currency system and digital ID?
[removing my foil bonnet.] / ;)
Nobody asked any of the profane shouters for their badge numbers?
I don’t know what these nihilistic pierced, dyed peripatetic “outside agitators” have to do with the state of either legacy party. They are no more Democrats than the MAGA rabble are Republicans.
This is evidence that the political process is profoundly broken. Wikipedia tells us that Trump garnered votes from a mere 31.59% of the voting eligible population, Harris had 30.66% of eligible voters. The winning position among eligible voters was the 36.1% who stayed away from the polls.
When you have busloads of nihilists with nothing better to do than travel long distances to disrupt the political process you are looking at a failed society.
That’s nearly 68% of eligible voters who took their time and went a little out of their way to support the current system… depressing, isn’t it?
I wish I could say with confidence this was a Karl Rove/Roger Stone-type ratf#*’ operation you witnessed, but I know too well how cartoon-ish, repellent (as in literally repelling people) and counter-productive the #McResistance can be.
Case in point from personal experience, and why a story like this cuts so deep: in March of 2019, right after Bernie held his first 2020 campaign event in Brooklyn, I went to (just outside) Pittsburgh and Erie, Pa. to support striking UE workers who build locomotives at the Wabtec/former GE facility in Erie. Scott Slawson, the head of UE Local 506 – United Electrical Workers, the most radical union in the country – had endorsed Bernie at the Brooklyn event, and I went to Pennsylvania in solidarity and to interview UE strikers and their supporters. It’s hard to recall now, but that was a pretty hopeful moment.
With me came my oldest friend, a committed activist who I’m sorry to say also has the worst case of TDS I’ve encountered, and which had strained our relationship before and since. I naively hoped that him getting out of NYC #McResistance circles and amid an industrial worker’s struggle would be a good thing. Oy, big mistake.
The instructive part was that during a pro-strike rally just outside of Pittsburgh, my friend overheard a participant being interviewed by NPR: when asked who she’d voted for in 2016, said she’d voted for Trump and would never vote Democrat again (imagine, in Western Pennsylvania!). My friend immediately lost his s*^#, and started pacing and raving, not quite loud enough to be disruptive but loud enough that people in surrounding clusters were staring at him. He calmed down just as I was about to insist he cool his role (I’ve never spoken to him about this, because I know where it would end up, as we can no longer discuss politics).
This episode has stayed with me, as it’s so illustrative: you call yourself a liberal/Left person who supports Labor; you travel out of your way, ostensibly to support a worker’s struggle at a potentially important moment… but when you encounter someone you claim to support whose political beliefs differ from yours, instead of taking the opportunity to talk with them, perhaps reach some sort of understanding with them (“You know, I agree with almost evreything you say, but I just can’t get behind your conclusions,” or the like) , or at least perhaps learn something, no… instead, you run around with your hair on fire, as proof of your moral worth.
So, yeah, here we are.
I remember when O said he’d put on his marching shoes and walk with protestors and union workers. Yeah, didn’t happen. I’m starting to see the McResistance as a demoralization project run by the Dem estab on its own unhappy voter base.
I also remember the energy the Dem estab put into shutting down Occupy Wall St protests when they got traction; into fracturing the beginnings of the Democratic Socialists groups when they started to get traction.
https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-canceling-of-adolph-reed-2020-08-16
Ye olde divide and conquer.
“I wish I could say with confidence this was a Karl Rove/Roger Stone-type ratf#”
That’s the catch these days. It hasn’t been determined who all wants to disrupt any developing opposition to the economic order.
I wasn’t automatically pinning it on “Republicans”.
Any Republican opposition to the current order would face the same dilemma.
Okay, wealthy liberal elites in a wealthy liberal elite microenclave are acting like freaks and lunatics. What else is new? Nothing about this anecdote is instructive or able to be extrapolated to the world of the 99%. Reminds me of the Trumpland Travel Diary articles from this time 8 years ago.
welp, it looks like “false flag” hypothesizing is a pan-partisan trait.
Assuming that this incident(s) are organized and funded, I highly doubt that the funders gave specific tactical instructions re. their desire for disruption and name-calling. Rather, someone in a boardroom approved $xxx.xx for general voter mobilization and political activism. Once that directive and funding trickled down to the mid-level executive/non-commissioned officers level did it devolve into chaos that aren’t even seen in high school elections.
IMO. YMMV.
The Seattle Times is reporting a similarly disrupted GOP town hall in Spokane (originally a Spokesman Review article).
I can see the spectacle amping your loathing for Democrats to new heights, but why would that push you into the Trump camp? That part makes no sense. If you are turning out to raise issues with your rep in a deep blue area, the odds that you’ll be looking for reassurance about Trump are very low. So why would having a bunch of pseudo-woke disruptors make you suddenly change your spots? If anything it should make you say, “Goddamn it, we need a real left-wing party, not one that appeases these lame freaks!” I mean, let them bus these characters from out of state to shout obscenities at a union hall and see how that turns out.