Many people want answers.
In a tumultuous time many are looking for clarity at least, and maybe even some solace.
And these so-called “leaders” are basically fleeing the encounter, and their own constituents.
Almost all congressional Republicans are scared of facing voters in town hall meetings over the long President's Day weekend. Only 19 representatives and senators-a tiny number-will hold town meetings during the first recess of the current session of Congress, reports the Town Hall Project. But the group's listing of these democratic mainstays barely tells the story.
They seem to simply not want to be challenged.
An eye-opening Washington Post account revealed that Republican officeholders have been canceling planned town halls because they don't want to face critics upset that they may soon lose their health insurance or see an increase in costs as the GOP plans to undermine Obamacare. Even worse, they don't want organized progressive groups to show up with posters, video cameras, and a determination to challenge them in public while posting the confrontations on YouTube:
According to the Town Hall Project, which collates information about public town halls, there are no availabilities in Utah-where every federal officeholder is a Republican-over the coming week. That's not a fluke. Just 19 Republican members of Congress have scheduled traditional town halls over the weeklong recess. Several more, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY.), have listed ticketed events or 'office hours;' a few more have announced tele-town halls, which allow constituents to lob questions without risking a "YouTube moment."
And then they make the accusation that those same voters are paid protestors.
Chaffetz said the crowd that filled the auditorium at Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights and spilled over into a protest outside included people brought in from other states to disrupt the meeting.
"Absolutely. I know there were," he said, suggesting it was "more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate" than a reflection of the feelings of his 3rd District constituents.
Because just running away isn’t embarrassing and politically foolish enough.
Rep. Marie Poulson, D-Cottonwood Heights, said she believed most of the estimated 1,000 attendees inside the high school auditorium — and at least that many who protested outside — were Chaffetz's constituents.
"I've heard some of my colleagues (at the Utah Legislature) say here today that they had shipped in liberals to give him a bad time," Poulson said. "I serve that area and I listen to their frustrations."
She said when she invited her own constituents to attend a legislative gathering held in Holladay on Thursday night, many in the politically moderate area said they were going to Chaffetz's town hall meeting instead.
"I had so many get back to me and say, 'We've been so upset by what Rep. Chaffetz is doing. We want him to investigate equally, with as much zeal as he did in the past, with this current administration,'" Poulson said.
From an optical standpoint, in terms of outreach and looking like a decent civil servant and all that, this seems like the stupidest move they could possibly make. Shun your own voters and disenfranchise them by denying that access to which you are literally sworn, and then insult them and infuriate them by telling them they must be getting paid and their grievances are not real.
Only the truly desperate would try to get away with such nonsense.
Only those who are so desperate to stay mum that they're willing to ignore the wrath of the very people they’ll soon count on to keep them in power.
So just what are they so desperate to avoid talking about?
President Donald J Trump.
Questions about him.
Questions about their support for him or their silence concerning him.
Questions about just what those voters are supposed to do now that they have a lying, powermad fool for a president.
And so the politicos run, away from the question “What do we do?”, because they don't have an answer. Which is the same reason they see fit to smear the very people who elected them. They're banking, I guess, on people forgetting. They're banking on those tens of millions of scared and unhappy voters poking their heads back into the sand.
But that's one good thing Trump has done and is doing. He's shown the whole country that poking your head in the political sand might very well get you a lying, powermad fool for a president.