In his letter regarding town halls (“Our Readers’ Views, March 4), Tom Tangen compared elected representatives to lone black speakers at a KKK rally and Jewish speakers at an Islamic State convention. That’s a pretty bad analogy. The “liberal protesters” he rails against aren’t the elected representatives’ sworn enemies, they are their constituents. Some of them voted for the representatives, some of them didn’t. But they are constituents.
We had a similar situation in 2009, during the run-up to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). Democratic senators and congressmen hosting town halls were subjected to boos and catcalls by angry Tea Party members, hijacked town halls, being screamed at that Obamacare included so-called “death panels” that were going to kill their grandparents, and that Obamacare was un-American at best and communistic at worst. Some of these crowds were so agitated the representatives cut the meetings short and left under armed guard.
But now the shoe is on the other foot. A great many of the representatives’ constituents, many of them conservatives who voted for the Republicans now attempting to kill Obamacare, have discovered that it is not, in fact, a communistic plot. Many of them have discovered that, contrary to the outright lies they were told, Obamacare has resulted in them finally being able to obtain affordable health care. And they like it. And they’re finding that having the rug jerked out from under them is a frightening proposition. And they’re angry about it and they’re showing their anger.
Perhaps Mr. Tangen would feel more comfortable if the representatives were to allow only constituents who agreed with them to attend. But that’s not how democracy works.
