Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey got an earful about congressional Democrats’ strategy and messaging when he returned to Maryland for a town hall with constituents.
“Congressman, I cannot sufficiently emphasize this to you: The message that was sent by Democrats in Congress with the CR catastrophe was clear — it’s not that you’re in the minority; it’s that you aren’t even working together on a shared strategy,” one attendee at the Maryland Democrat’s Wednesday town hall yelled from the balcony of the auditorium.
“We are not interested in hearing that you are in the minority. We know that. We want you to show some of the backbone and strategic brilliance that Mitch McConnell would have in the minority,” they added. “We want you to show fight. And you are not fighting.”
Many attendees specified they were happy with Ivey’s decisions thus far, but wanted him and other Democrats to be “less polite” and take a firmer stance against President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans.
“We need you to be a little bit less polite, a little bit more ‘hell no,’ instead of ‘a little bit no,’” one woman told the congressman.
“And there may be a time when you and other congresspeople need to do civil disobedience. You need to be arrested. And I will go with you. I will stand next to you and be arrested,” she told Ivey. “These are the times we are in.”
“Democrats are a party of decorum, but there’s no decorum anymore,” another attendee said. “He had an address where all he did was lie, use derogatory terms towards a senator’s ethnicity, or her background. Like, there is no decorum. So, why is the Democrat Party holding on to decorum that no longer exists in this country?”
“We can’t be worried about doing what’s right, because they’re not doing what’s right,” he continued. “What’s right is already out the window.”
