DAVID MARCUS: The Left's coordinated town hall protests are an attack on democracy
According to new reporting from Fox News Digital, a progressive group in New York is attempting to organize thousands of protesters to overwhelm Rep. Mike Lawler’s town hall, scheduled for Sunday in West Nyack. It's a trend we have seen across the country.
The group in question is called Indivisible Rockland, and in a video obtained by Digital, one of the organizers, Nyack Village Deputy Mayor Pascale Jean-Gilles, is heard calling not only for protests outside the event, but to disrupt the town hall itself.
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At one point, after making clear that yelling and booing are protected speech, the elected official actually said, "Now, if people are shouting slurs and hate speech, that’s where I absolutely draw the line."
Well, thanks for that helpful clarification.
Let’s be clear, deliberately interfering with a United States House of Representatives member's official town halls with constituents is a brazen assault on democracy at its most basic level, and an insult to the rest of the community.
To hijack these events is incredibly unfair to the voters who have valid concerns other than, "Donald Trump is evil." Those citizens will just be drowned out, denied the access to their representative that they have a right to.
Wealthy donors can get on the phone with congressional offices of both parties, but normal folks have to get in the car, drive to the meeting and put in some effort to have their voices heard.
Town hall meetings with politicians are as old as America and, for good reason. They serve a vital purpose. People in places like West Nyack have issues with interstates, problems with the Post Office, serious questions about Social Security and more. But the progressive rabble-rousers don’t care.
For four years, all that Democrats and their allies could talk about was January 6th, the assault on democracy, and very specifically, the impeding of an official congressional function.
Well guess what? Town halls are also an official congressional function, one where the average working man can finally have some face time. Just not if the far left has anything to say about it.
And this is a pattern for the Democrats. For all the wailing and lamentations over January 6th, when it was private individuals being killed and private property burning in the summer of 2020, well, that was just a righteous protest.
Progressives don't speak for the people, they decide for the people. In fact, polling shows the only group that overwhelmingly supports their policies are well-off, college-educated white women, not exactly the proletariat.
In the Indivisible Rockland video, Jean Gilles urges protesters to stuff the boxes used to collect constituents' questions with their own disingenuous queries. How about you don’t do that? How about you let Mike Lawler’s constituents ask whatever damn questions they want without progressive organizers doing an end run around them and shouting them down if they say something the astroturf boo birds don’t like?
There are countless appropriate venues in which to protest members of Congress. Outside the Capitol or their district offices, on any street corner, a campaign event, by all means, at any of these places, knock yourself out with the yelling.
Town halls are for the individual, the free American citizen, and what these progressive groups are telling them is that they don’t matter, what they care about doesn’t matter and they will be informed, not asked, what they think.
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After all, if the far Left is right and the whole country is freaking out over Trump’s alleged oligarchical authoritarianism, or whatever they’re calling it these days, then surely a few questions along those lines would pop up organically.
But the Left never takes that chance, and unfortunately, some voters with legitimate questions to ask their congressman won’t be able to on Sunday night, if they can even find parking.
Democrats never seem to realize that one can be anti-democratic without breaking the law. In fact, the Constitution protects all kinds of anti-democratic activity, and that is exactly what groups like Indivisible Rockland are engaged in.
A simpler way to put all of this: Show some respect. In a democracy, all voices must be heard, not just the shrill cackling of the angry left.