I have devoted much of my time since retiring to the Eastern Shore to the proposition that neighbors can have civil and intelligent discussions of important issues. Therefore, I am disappointed and appalled by the behavior of my neighbors at the recent Town Hall meeting with Congressman Harris. It was an evening where shouting took the place of civility and slogans took the place of intelligence.
I was not surprised to see personal attacks, slogans, and repetition of urban myths as well as thoughtful and challenging comments in response to my columns. I experienced as much from members of Congress when I was called to testify before them. It has become the new normal in these venues. But the possibility that our Congressman cannot meet with his constituents on the Eastern Shore without being shouted down is not tolerable.
When did the losers of an election decide that they should get out in the streets to show their displeasure when an official they voted against shows up? I would like to repeat for the demonstrators at Congressman Harris’s meeting the same thing I tried to tell the Freedom Caucus – what you want is irrelevant when you don’t have the votes. Get out and work for what you want, express your point of view logically and see whom you can convince. What do you expect to accomplish by shouting incomprehensible slogans and shutting off any possibility of rational discussion? It is not going to give the Congressman any fewer votes in the next election, nor does it give the majority who voted for him any reason to listen to your points of view.
What has happened to the idea of coming into a meeting with well-formulated questions and logically presented and supported alternative points of view? Is the left so intellectually impoverished that all it can do is hold up signs, recite slogans and make noise? Is it better to get pictures of your signs in the newspapers or to get quotations of comments and questions that are actually relevant to how the Congressman votes?
I was a young man during the age of protests – of segregation, of the war in Viet Nam, of censorship, and of any number of perfectly silly grievances. I am sure many then had the illusion that by manning the barricades, they would inspire workers and students (the usual fantasy coalition) to replicate the French Revolution or Paris Commune. Of course, that never happened. Yet there still seems to be a myth that if a few people come out to mouth slogans and shout down anyone they disagree with, that will bring about the political change they cannot achieve through the normal politics of discussion and debate.
That has not happened in the United States. When millions listened to Martin Luther King in Washington, they heard a thoughtful message about common values and goals. That reached hearts and minds, and changed votes and laws. When Barack Obama promised reconciliation and hope, whites and blacks listened and voted together. When Donald Trump spoke to a forgotten working class and promised to recognize their suffering and remedy it, he won the election. And in Trump’s case, he got his message across despite facing the same kind of disruption that is now destroying civility on the Eastern Shore. Mob tactics were not what achieved these outcomes, nor could they prevent them. The candidates may or may not have been telling the truth, but what they said, not what demonstrators did, determined the outcome.
The politics of incivility and misbehavior do not win in the United States. But they have worked in other countries, and their consequences have been awful Do you remember how Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain and Italy, and Peronist Argentina were taken over? By the same tactics of filling minds with slogans, mobilizing crowds to cow the opposition, and shouting down disagreement. The choice to trample on civil dialog and rational presentation of positions on public issues leads in only one direction – toward a political apparatus that uses the mob to negate the desires and potential votes of the majority, that silences discussion, and that pressures elected officials and voters into conformity with the program of the most violent and unrestrained.
And before the replies start coming in about how offensive President Trump was and is, remember that the politics of disruption and silencing are being undertaken by only one faction – the progressive and supposedly freedom-loving left. Liberal college campuses are the ones where riots drive out conservative speakers; none of Hilary Clinton’s appearances were cancelled due to security concerns about attacks or riots; conservative comedians don’t think it is funny to suggest assassination.
I am resigned to the way the universities where I studied have betrayed their principles of open discussion and tolerance, but I am not willing to give up on the Eastern Shore. We are neighbors, we come from many backgrounds, we know different things, and we can sit face to face and discuss the issues of public policy on which there is such wide disagreement. We have discussion clubs, policy forums at the Avalon Theater and many similar events sponsored by Republican, Democratic, and completely nonpartisan organizations. We have the Spy! All these give us an opportunity to listen, think and speak – a remarkably useful sequence in which to approach divisive topics. I recommend them over packing into a college auditorium to drown out the speaker.
David Montgomery was formerly Senior Vice President of NERA Economic Consulting. He also served as assistant director of the US Congressional Budget Office and deputy assistant secretary for policy in the US Department of Energy. He taught economics at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University and was a senior fellow at Resources for the Future.
Wendy Moore says
Thank you for this very thoughtful letter. I too am disappointed by the behavior of our citizenry. How anyone could expect our representative to take any thing constructive away from the meeting is beyond me.
Kathi Donegan says
Oh, dear. I keep reading your articles with the hope that we will ever agree on something.
Once again you shoot yourself in the foot with the sentence, “…Is the left so intellectually impoverished that all it can do is hold up signs, recite slogans and make noise?” See, now that kind of attitude can get people’s backs up and assume YOU are not a nice, civil person. And please watch the Spy’s video on Mr. Harris’ town meeting, you might not see it yourself, but his whole demeanor is dripping with disdain. I assume the man reads the press, watches the news, listens to people; so I find it hard to believe that he thought he could waltz in with his slides and commandeer this town meeting, with his own constituents, into a presentation of his choosing. But, perhaps he, like even you, are really that out of touch with what is keeping your neighbors up at night.
Maria Wood says
“remember that the politics of disruption and silencing are being undertaken by only one faction – the progressive and supposedly freedom-loving left.”
I’m sorry, are you not aware of the continuing shouts to “LOCK HER UP” from Trump supporters? The chants to “Trump that B*tch”? American democratic institutions are built on dissent, on protest, on freedom of speech. Elected officials represent *all* their constituents, not just the ones who agree with them, or voted for them. A town hall meeting is meant to be a venue for representatives to hear from citizens, to listen to the issues in their districts and the opinions of the people who live there. They are not meant to be PR opportunities, campaign rallies, or lectures.
Deirdre LaMotte says
A lecture from another ridiculous dinosaur who we are supposedly meant to be impressed with. Really now, Mr. Montgomery, you have the nerve to question the actions of those who attended
this Town Hall. This man who is owned by the Koch’s Club for Growth, NRA, Big Phama…on and on, and his dismal voting record that only reflects those who purchased him.
The biggest laugh is your shock at the demonstaters. I know your choice for President is a joke but not a laughing matter, but why don’t you spend a weekend reviewing
tapes of his vial rallies, listen to what he thinks of women and what he thinks he can get any with, listen to his attitude towards “others” to simply rile up the
“Uneducated” (his word). Your President who does not read books, has no intellectual curiosity and could care less for those who aren’t rich. Boy, what your elk will put
up with for tax reductions. Sorry, you are already on the losing side of history. And please drop the smugness. When vile speech that is devastating in its ugliness
Is brought to the forefront, thanks to your President, don’t expect a passive resistance. Free speech is one thing, inciting division and hatred is quite another.
Stephen Payne says
The losers of an election don’t lose their right to question and respond. The questions to Rep. Harris were in writing and were actual questions about his policies. It was his his response that most didn’t like. It was “spirited” indeed but he dished it out too.
Gren Whitman says
Memo to Mr. M: History’s not made by tut-tutters.
James Nick says
“What has happened to the idea of coming into a meeting with well-formulated questions and logically presented and supported alternative points of view? Is the left so intellectually impoverished that all it can do is hold up signs, recite slogans and make noise? Is it better to get pictures of your signs in the newspapers or to get quotations of comments and questions that are actually relevant to how the Congressman votes?” Seriously????
With this latest post, Mr Montgomery reveals himself to be in the same league as Kellyanne Conway, she of the Alternative Facts. The Republican franchise seems to depend on all of us having a case of collective amnesia in order to buy in to this sort of revisionist history. Step into the Wayback Machine (aka, YouTube) and search the term “tea party town hall protests” and you will find countless examples that answer Mr Montgomery’s questions that he poses with faux-bewilderment. As just a small sampling, consider these…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl5Jo0GnX-k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4G9RGxahTM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvdaX35_Bhc
Maybe it’s my lyin’ eyes again, but some of the extreme behavior seen in these videos makes holding up signs, reciting slogans and making noise seem downright civilized. Then there’s this contemporary report… https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/08/07/209919206/5-memorable-moments-when-town-hall-meetings-turned-to-rage
A quote from this story… “Demonstrations at some of these gatherings led to fistfights, arrests and even hospitalizations. News networks and protesters with camcorders and cellphones captured the often unruly gatherings as disgruntled citizens took the opportunity to execute — often loudly — their right to free speech. At one particularly hostile town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pa., a man in the audience rose to shout that then-Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., was “trampling on our constitutional rights” and that someday God would judge Specter and his fellow “cronies on the Hill.” The veteran senator left the meeting after being shoved and booed by other audience members.
What happened to the idea of coming into a meeting with well-formulated questions and logically presented and supported alternative points of view? The tea party is what happened to it Mr Montgomery. It was your tribe that redefined the rules of engagement and with trump now in the White House, it evidently works.
B Thompson says
Just what we need, another privileged k retiree (let’s hear it for NERA!) to advise us here on the Shore that the road to hell is a lot less painful if we are nice to our tormentors. Was Mr. Montgomery even at the Harris town hall? Is he not aware that the congressman attempted to hog a third of the allotted time to present a flawed and deceptive slide show? Did he not hear Harris spew lies about federal funding and Planned Parenthood, that he suggested rural residents have a choice in selecting their ISPs, and that he generally treated the audience with condescending arrogance? I’m not ashamed of the boisterous reception. Just the opposite.
Lolli Sherry says
“What has happened to the idea of coming into a meeting with well-formulated questions and logically presented and supported alternative points of view? ”
Andy Harris set up the meeting specifically to preclude any such give and take. Questions had to be submitted via cards. There were no microphones in the audience so no presentations of alternate points of view were planned for or permitted. By setting a one-hour meeting, including his PowerPoint presentation, Harris made it clear he did not want any well-formulated discussion and did not really want to interact with his constituents . Indeed, the only mode of communication possible to participants was to shout it out.
Virginia Davis says
I need to add that Democrats have a great deal to contribute to all the ongoing debates, and for the most part have intelligent and pertinent questions to ask. What has set them apart from trump supporters is that they turn out in large numbers to protest legally in support of issues that impact EVERY American, such as the environment, human rights, inequality, etc.–and without chanting hateful things like “Lock her up,” getting physically aggressive, or forming hate groups that attack Jews, gays, immigrants, blacks, etc. We try to remain civil–and just wish everybody would.