Workaround

During the Overtime segment of Real Time with Bill Maher on March 7, the host asked (at 2:50 of the video below) of the panelist the audience question "What do you think of Republican leadership telling their members that they should avoid doing town halls?" Alyssa Farrah Griffin, designated conservative, anti-Trump Republican of The View, responded   

You can't hide from your own voters, like they're not gonna be mad if you don't show up? It's actually politically good advice from Richard Hudson because I think this is going to happen. 

Not satisfied with being right, she continued

My concern is that DOGE has cut a lot that we don't know and in the next few months, there's going to be goods and services that the American public does rely on, not the fat and waste that none of us like. And if you're not getting your VA benefits, if you're waiting at the Social Security office, you're gonna want to go and yell at your congressman or you're gonna vote him out of the office. 

Uh, no. That is how it should work but does not and will not. Recently ousted senator Jon Tester of Montana largely agreed, remarking 

The other thing I would add to that is you get in Washington, D.C. and round that brick and mortar and it's a bubble and you never hear what's going on in the real world. And these town hall meetings are the only way you can hear what's really going on in the real world.  

The real world to Republican members of the House (less so to Senators) is Donald J. Trump. If they slip up and criticize sort-of President Trump at all or come off as a buffoon at a town hall meeting, there is a serious chance that Trump will sponsor a primary challenger. In most of the districts they represent, the general election is a mere formality. A well-funded, well-endorsed primary challenger is the greater threat. 

Those GOP House members are betting that either things will turn around in the country, their Party will look better, and their re-election chances will be good or that voters will get so mad and frustrated that they will give up on haranguing or even challenging their Representative. They may get voted out of office but with a little help from the Republican god in the White House and a registration advantage for the GOP in the district, their odds are good. 

There is are tactics with the potential to get around this. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported  

Members of a left-leaning group tried to get Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the U.S. House, to hold a town hall to talk about President Donald Trump's sweeping changes to Washington.

Receiving no response, Wright County Indivisible and Indivisible North Metro chose to hold one without him. At least 300 people packed into the Monticello Community Center last week in Moorhead and Willmar, hundreds have been protesting outside Rep. Michelle Fischbach's district offices and int he street calling on her to talk to them about what's happening to the federal government under Trump.

Similar protests have drawn dozens in New Ulm and Rochester in front of Rep. Brad Finstad's district offices and more outside of Rep. Pete Stauber's office in Hermantown.

That's good, for a start. But has anyone outside of Minnesota heard about this? Without the member of Congress present, there is little media interest. And without media interest, the tree has fallen in the forest but no one has noticed.

I've never been in the public relations or the graphic arts business. However, we're all acquainted with the concept of an effigy. (No one has to be "hung in effigy.") There can be a real-life representation, computer-generated or old school, of the Republican congressman in the hall with the constituents. And then there is this:

House Republicans aren't hosting town halls because people are pissed about DOGE and cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. It's cowardly and they're leaving their constituents behind. If House Republicans won't host town halls in their districts, we will. pic.twitter.com/lRjhAdQoEW

— Congressman Robert Garcia (@RepRobertGarcia) March 10, 2025

Democrats squandered a huge opportunity when they attended Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address rather than holding a town hall meeting simultaneously in their own districts. Had they done so, there would have been at least some media coverage of their events and they would have avoided the media narrative that they were so naughty and so rude to the President.  Nonetheless, they can make up for lost time. As it is, there will be little price for Republicans to pay for avoiding public confrontations with their constituents. With the effort Representative Robert Garcia and a few others have chosen to put forth, that price could skyrocket.

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