Americans Are Furious And It’s Freaking Out GOP Reps At Their Town Halls

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Americans Are Furious And It’s Freaking Out GOP Reps At Their Town Halls

Release Date: March 3, 2025

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, host Sam Stein engages with Lauren Egan and Andrew Egger to delve into the escalating tensions at Republican town halls across the United States. The discussion centers on growing constituent anger, Republican responses, and the broader implications for the GOP as they navigate a turbulent political landscape.

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1. Introduction to Rising Tensions at GOP Town Halls

Sam Stein opens the conversation by highlighting the increasing frustration among American constituents during GOP town halls. He sets the stage by referencing a recent town hall event involving Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas.

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2. Case Study: Senator Roger Marshall’s Challenging Town Hall in Kansas

Andrew Egger provides a detailed account of Senator Marshall's town hall:

• Event Dynamics: Senator Marshall, representing a predominantly Republican area, faced a confrontational crowd. Andrew notes, “He gets a little prickly... it's a very testy environment all the way through” (01:02).

• Constituent Demographics: Many attendees were local, contradicting claims that protesters were outsiders. Andrew mentions, “a lot of people drove four or five hours from Kansas City” (01:02).

• Viral Clip Analysis: A particularly viral moment captured a constituent expressing concern over job cuts affecting veterans, stating, “it is a damn shame” (02:01). This clip underscores the genuine frustrations felt by constituents.

Sam Stein probes further, questioning whether these constituents are truly representative locals or part of orchestrated protests. Andrew confirms, “local media has identified him as a local” (03:17), emphasizing the authenticity of the discontent.

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3. Republican Responses: Accusations of Astroturfing

The conversation shifts to how Republicans are framing these confrontations:

• Astroturf Claims: Republicans, including Senator Marshall, label the protests as orchestrated by Democratic activists. Andrew states, “Republicans have settled into kind of a stock response... these are basically fake protesters... astroturf” (04:09).

• Understanding Astroturfing: There’s a brief exchange clarifying the term “astroturf,” with Lauren quipping about Sam's confusion (04:24), highlighting the dismissive attitude towards genuine constituent grievances.

Andrew Egger criticizes the narrative, suggesting that branding these protests as astroturfing allows Republicans to dismiss real voter concerns without addressing the underlying issues.

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4. Lauren Egan’s Insights: Genuine Constituent Frustration vs. Organized Activism

Lauren Egan challenges the notion that all protests are orchestrated:

• Organic Frustration: Lauren argues that while groups like Indivisible and Move On organize presence at town halls, there's also authentic frustration from constituents. She recounts conversations with individuals, such as a woman in Mississippi who lost her federal job and is upset about the impact on her family's finances (06:27).

• Federal Workforce Impact: Highlighting the widespread nature of federal layoffs, Lauren points out that the discontent isn't isolated but pervasive across various regions and sectors (07:22).

She emphasizes that these layoffs have tangible effects on voters' lives, making the frustration both genuine and widespread.

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5. The Critical Role of Town Halls in Political Feedback

Sam Stein and Lauren Egan discuss the importance of town halls for political leaders:

• Voter Sentiment Gauge: Town halls serve as crucial venues for legislators to understand voter concerns. Sam reflects on past administrations, noting that Obama used town halls to gauge public sentiment, which sometimes indicated future electoral challenges (09:00).

• Missed Opportunities: Sam suggests that Biden’s lack of town halls during his first year may have deprived Democrats of early indicators of voter dissatisfaction, similarly to how Republicans are currently challenged (08:05).

Lauren Egan adds that proactive engagement through town halls allows representatives to address issues before they escalate, as seen with past educational policy debates (09:31).

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6. Future Outlook: Escalating Confrontations and Political Risks

The trio anticipates that confrontations at town halls are likely to intensify:

• Upcoming Events: Sam mentions Trump’s upcoming speech and the trend of Democrats bringing guests, such as fired federal workers, to illustrate the human impact of policy decisions (09:42).

• Regional Impact: Andrew highlights specific instances, like the CDC layoffs in Atlanta, which have significant regional repercussions and contribute to mounting voter anger (10:30).

• Republican Strategy Critique: Andrew critiques the GOP’s dismissal of these protests as mere political theater, arguing that this stance may prevent them from addressing real issues that could jeopardize their political standing (11:12).

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7. Conclusion: Implications for the Republican Party

As town halls become battlegrounds for political grievances, the Republican Party faces a dilemma:

• Ignoring Voter Pain: By dismissing constituent frustrations as astroturfing, Republicans risk alienating voters who are genuinely affected by policy decisions like federal workforce cuts.

• Potential Political Fallout: Andrew warns that failing to engage meaningfully with these concerns could lead to significant political repercussions in upcoming elections, as voters demand accountability and representation (12:15).

Sam Stein wraps up by contemplating the long-term effects of these unresolved issues, emphasizing the necessity for Republicans to reassess their approach to constituent relations (13:31).

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Notable Quotes

• Andrew Egger: “These are a bunch of Democratic activists who got bused in... real Kansans are super into the Doge stuff” (05:09).

• Unknown Constituent: “Doing right now as far as cutting out those jobs... that is a damn shame” (02:01).

• Sam Stein: “If you're a member of Congress, you kind of want those town halls to at least give you some insight into where the voter sentiment really lies” (09:00).

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Key Takeaways

• Growing Constituent Frustration: GOP representatives are increasingly facing angry constituents at town halls, driven by real grievances over policy decisions like federal workforce reductions.

• Republican Response Skepticized: The GOP's tendency to label these protests as astroturfing overlooks genuine voter concerns, potentially exacerbating political vulnerabilities.

• Essential Role of Engagement: Town halls remain vital for legislators to connect with and understand their constituents, with missed opportunities posing risks for future electoral success.

• Future Challenges for the GOP: Continued disregard for constituent dissatisfaction may lead to significant political fallout, undermining Republican positions in upcoming elections.

This episode underscores the critical need for political leaders to engage authentically with voter concerns, highlighting the potential consequences of ignoring or dismissing constituent frustrations.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

Hey, guys. Me. Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. Back again. I'm joined by Lauren Egan and Andrew Egger and we are going to talk town halls and what exactly is happening at them. Andrew, Lauren, thanks for joining. Let's start with you, Andrew, because it was in morning shots, this clip from over the weekend, Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, he's out and I guess it's a fairly Republican part of the state. And he's just being kind of like, I don't want to say heckled. I don't think it's a heckling, although. How do you define heckling? I think he was just being sort of like pushed by constituents to not be okay with firing a bunch of federal employees who, many of whom happen to be veterans. And he gets a little prickly. Describe what happened and then we could address the conspiracies surrounding these town halls.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, so the whole thing's a bit of a Rorschach, because what happens is Roger Marshall shows up and immediately he gets there. He's there, there, there. Number of people who are not like from that town. They're still from Kansas, not from there. Say again?

[Sam Stein]

How do they know they're not from the town?

[Andrew Egger]

Local media talk to a lot of them after. They're like, a lot of people drove four or five hours from Kansas City, that kind of thing. But, but, but, but. And they're, they boo him when he first shows up and they kind of never really stop. It's a very kind of prickly environment the whole time. But it is like a question and answer environment. It's not like they're not letting him talk, they're not chanting or anything like that. You know, it's, it's the, they are here to kind of make their opinions heard and, you know, ask him questions and he's there to. He obviously just kind of wants to be talking to the Republicans from this very Republican area that he has showed up at and is kind of mad that anybody else is there. So it's this, it's this very testy environment all the way through. He calls them rude. He says they've been fed misinformation, which is kind of funny. And, and then at the end, these.

[Sam Stein]

Are still his constituents. Like, let's just be clear, he's the center of this state.

[Andrew Egger]

Right, right, right. But there's a reason why he didn't show up in Kansas City to do a town hall. Right, but, but at the very end, there's this clip that has gone very viral and we can watch it is.

[Unknown]

Doing right now as far as cutting out those jobs. A huge percentage of those people. And I know you care about the veterans are veterans. Yes. And that is a damn shame.

[Lauren Egan]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that is a damn shame.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not a Democrat, but I'm worried.

[Unknown]

About the veterans, man.

Well, I yielded to one of my, my elders and I appreciate his comments. I think it's a great. I'm not gonna. We don't have time for everyone to stand up. I do got two more commitments today. Appreciate everybody making the dried out and God bless America.

[Andrew Egger]

We're gonna take Pict and what you see here is, is like not a very good look for him because this is not one of those people. Right. This is a local man who has stood up to kind of very just sort of politely and sort of sorrowfully talk about how, how cut up he is about the fact that Doge is firing veterans. And he thinks it's, you know, he sees it as an unintended consequence. He thinks it's the wrong way to cut costs.

[Sam Stein]

Do we know if this guy's a local or transplant?

[Andrew Egger]

We know that local media has identified him as a local. I was not able to track him down myself, but, but, but he was, he was a local guy. According to Kansas News Service, which was on the ground there.

[Sam Stein]

Here's the things, like if this was a one off, like I could see why they would be like, oh, this is a bunch of people from Kansas City, the radical Kansas City poppies. But this is happening all over the country. Well, I'm going to say all of the countries happening. A lot of Republican districts, obviously. We saw it a couple weeks ago down in Georgia, but it's been happening everywhere. So like, what do they say about that, Andrew?

[Andrew Egger]

So this is the really interesting thing, right, Is like when these news reports have cropped up, Republicans have settled into kind of a stock response here, which is that these are basically fake protesters. These are, these are Democratic activists or people who have been called astroturf.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Andrew Egger]

Say again?

[Sam Stein]

It's called Astroturf.

[Andrew Egger]

Right, right, right, right. They've been astroturfed and put up to it by, you get it, groups.

[Sam Stein]

Do you understand what astroturf is?

[Andrew Egger]

The physical thing that they make fake.

[Sam Stein]

Do you understand the phrase out of.

[Lauren Egan]

Sam really is like on one today.

[Andrew Egger]

It's not going on. Yeah, we know what's not grasp. It's familiar with the, the artificial ter and the political term. Yeah, I used it in morning shots this morning.

[Lauren Egan]

Okay. Did you get eight hours of sleep? Okay.

[Sam Stein]

I did not get my eight hours, for what it's worth.

[Lauren Egan]

Maybe try it. Okay.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I will.

[Andrew Egger]

But anyway, this is what, this is what Roger Marshall says himself. Right. The next. The next. Or that that same day his office puts out a statement that basically says, these are a bunch of Democratic activists who got bused in. They couldn't have put Oakley, Kansas, where this town hall was on a map. And he says real Kansans are super into the Doge stuff. Like, they're, they're all about it. They're cheerleading. They would certainly never, never yell at me about it at a town hall. And in fact, I ought to be commended for saying as long as I did what he.

[Sam Stein]

Are we seeing any more Republicans, like, limit their town hall availabilities now? I know that was a thing.

[Andrew Egger]

I think that's, that's the thing that remains to be seen. Right. Is like, these things are not going very well for them and they have this kind of stock response of like, well, you know, why would we do this when they're just going to get snowed under by these activists anyway?

[Sam Stein]

All right, so then, Lauren, this comes to you because you've been looking into this. Like, is this, is this actually astroturf, Right. I mean, Democrats certainly are organizing around this stuff. I know.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah. Like, the groups always organize on both sides around these kinds of town halls. So, like, sure, you're indivisible. Move on. They have been showing up at some of these events, but, like, you know, it's kind of like a combo. You have some groups organizing, but there's also like, real organic frustration from actual constituents with some of what's going on. I think what Republicans are starting to see is, like, the federal workforce is big. There are federal employees around the country, not just in the D.C. area. Some of them are starting to lose their jobs and they're pissed about it. I just talked to, like, one woman the other day who lives in Mississippi, and she just lost her job. She's a federal employee. Her husband was a Trump voter and he was kind of like, what the hell? Like, I didn't vote for this. And they're pissed off because, like, they're like, how are we going to pay our mortgage now? So.

[Andrew Egger]

Right.

[Lauren Egan]

You know, it's Republicans, it's like a cop out. They're trying to just, like, say it's.

[Sam Stein]

All, how does this work operationally? Like, indivisible or move on or whoever. Like, figures out where these people are going to be and then tells activists to go show up there.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, well, like, the town Halls are, are, you know, they're public events. You have the address.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, do you. I feel like they're not posing. I feel like they're not doing town halls or they're hiding the information around.

[Lauren Egan]

Okay, well, in theory, town halls are supposed to be public events where you can show up to them.

[Sam Stein]

Right?

[Lauren Egan]

But yeah, like these groups have, well, you know, on their websites they'll kind of blast it out to their, like chapters around the country. So they're, they're definitely organizing to get people to go. But like, it's not just first of all, also like one of the accusations that these are like paid, paid people that are showing up, which they are not in this group.

[Sam Stein]

They're not. Go ahead. Sorry. I am on today.

[Lauren Egan]

I'm so glad you can admit it. That's great. Real growth for you. They're not paid, but yeah, they help, you know, chapters across the country figure out where these events are, you know, and even when they don't have events too. Like, like, because what, the next recess is coming up in two weeks and even the last recess, some of the, you know, typically during a recess you hold a town town hall.

[Andrew Egger]

Right.

[Lauren Egan]

Some members are starting to pull back on those and so, you know, you've got your indivisible move on. They'd show up in those districts and kind of like make a big show out fact that so and so isn't hosting a town hall because they're afraid of answering tough questions on doge.

[Sam Stein]

So just occurred to me that Joe Biden in his first year, no Democrats held town halls because of co.

[Andrew Egger]

Right.

[Sam Stein]

Like, it was just you didn't have those types of gatherings. And I think maybe to a degree now I'm trying to remember this, but things really started apart, fall apart that summer for Biden because of the reemergence of COVID and then of course the Afghanistan drawdown. But maybe they could have benefited from having town halls. Right? Like getting a sense of where the voter anger was or the voter sentiment was. And certainly this was the case with Obama. Right. Like, the town halls were an early indication that things were going to go sideways. Didn't prevent them from suffering humiliating defeats in the midterms. But I don't know, to me it seems like if you're a member of Congress, you kind of want those town halls to at least give you some insight into where the voter sentiment really lies. Right?

[Lauren Egan]

Totally. Well, I guess in 2021 and 2022 we did have like the school board stuff. Do you remember?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, right, yeah. Loudoun county school boards. Yeah.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah. So there was that. I mean, and that was a perfect example, to your point, of like an early indication of like the DEI backlash that we're going to see. If you are an elected member of Congress who is, you know, supposed to be responsive to your constituents, you would think you would want to like, you know, gauge where they're out on certain things.

[Sam Stein]

So what's going. So then the next thing, Andrews, they have the, the Trump speech tomorrow night. Can't call it a State of the Union. I guess not. Because it's not technically a State of the Union. I don't know.

[Andrew Egger]

The first one is, and I don't know why they do it this way.

[Sam Stein]

Just call it.

[Andrew Egger]

It's still the State of the Union, right? More so than ever.

[Sam Stein]

Yes. I don't know what that means, but sure. And then Democrats are all bringing guests. I think the new, the new fad is bring a fired federal worker with you to the state of the Union. I don't know. Is that going to move the needle? Who knows? But I guess this idea is active confrontation with Republicans over the fired federal workforce and the employees. And I agree with Lauren. I feel like it's underappreciated how widespread the workforce actually is. Like, there's a reason that one of these protests was outside of Atlanta. The CDC is in Atlanta. Thousand people were laid off at the cdc. Like that's going to matter for that region. So is this thing just going to grow is my guess. Probably. And they're just going to be more confrontations? Probably. I don't know. What do you think, Andrew?

[Andrew Egger]

Well, that's the crazy thing about it is like, yes. It doesn't seem like there's any reason to believe this is going to slow down. The firings certainly are not slowing down. But at the same time, Republicans seem to be actively trying to kind of like cut themselves off from any possibility of, of like taking any of this to heart. Right. Because they're, they're selling themselves this narrative. I mean, this is like Republicans favorite thing to do in recent years is to act like, like kind of signals that are coming in are actually sort of like planted there by Democrats. You don't have to pay attention to them. But like here there is a very real possibility that what they are doing is cutting themselves off from the ability to flinch away from real political pain. Right. Because if, if Republicans were to get it through their heads right now that some of this Doge stuff is third rail stuff that's going to come back to Bite them. I mean, if they were to pivot.

[Sam Stein]

Away from that too, though, right? Like, because we had that story where they were privately sending letters to their constituents, being like, we're going to protect your privacy. Like, I know this is happening really fast, but publicly they can't do it.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, that, I mean, publicly is, is a big part of it, right? I mean, that's the reason why a lot of these guys are mad, is that they're not standing up. It's not like Roger Marshall has all that much to do with Doge right now. DOGE is completely, you know, unconstrained by anything Congress is doing, by anything the other agencies are doing. Like, what these people are looking for is for someone to stand up and like, at least sort of make the case for them publicly, push back publicly and things like that. And so, like, if they were to pivot, right, if they were to start doing that kind of thing now, if they were to somehow end this sort of indiscriminate pillaging of the federal workforce, well, it's 20 months to the next election, right. That's a lot of time to put this, this political pain to rest. But because they don't seem like they're able to feel that political pain because they're selling themselves this sort of anesthetic story that it's not real, it's all astroturf, it really kind of raises the question whether they will be able to do that kind of.

[Sam Stein]

Well, maybe, or maybe they just think it's short term pain and eventually the populace will get used to this new reality and it will turn around within that 20 months. Right. Like, maybe that's just it. Like, get it done with. Ripped a bandit off.

[Lauren Egan]

And then it's pretty wishful thinking if you're out of a job. Like, I don't know how that.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

[Andrew Egger]

And it also just assumes that everything that's going to break is like, is just these fired people and not all the things they were doing before to keep services.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, we don't know.

[Sam Stein]

He's, he's not a bi. He's obviously a biased source. But one story that popped up in my feed today that I thought was, you know, if it came to fruition, would be really shocking, was Martin Ali, who used to administer the Social Security Administration. He's, he said he's like, look, if these cuts continue as is people where they're gonna have to miss a paycheck, like, we're gonna have to see Social Security miss paycheck never has happened before and it's not because they don't have the funds. There's a separate debate over whether Social Security is self sustaining. I don't want to get into it. Don't worry about it. It's because operationally they don't have the people to administer the paychecks. And if that happens, boy, I mean people are gonna be livid. Like. Yeah.

[Lauren Egan]

So pissed.

[Sam Stein]

Imagine just elderly voters being like, wait a second, I need this to literally buy food. That's bad. Can't imagine. All right, we'll leave it on that. Andrew. Lauren, I'm sorry for my bad attitude. I'm gonna.

[Lauren Egan]

It's okay.

[Sam Stein]

Work on that.

[Lauren Egan]

Good night's sleep it.

[Sam Stein]

That's hard.

[Andrew Egger]

We're going to cut all that out. The viewers won't even know how.

[Sam Stein]

You deserve the unvarnished sand. I'm not like a Republican lawmaker. I don't hide from these things. Okay. They deserve it. Thank you guys. And thank you to the viewers for tuning in. Appreciate it. Take care.