Resistance Is Making Trump SAD: Annoyed by pushback, Trump takes aim at progressive activism
Annoyed by pushback, Trump takes aim at progressive activism
02/22/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
At his White House press conference last week, Donald Trump acknowledged the progressive activists working to protect their health care benefits, but the president quickly added that these Americans don’t really count.
“We’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare,” he said. “Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It’s a disaster. You can say, ‘Oh, Obamacare.’ I mean, they fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.”
It was a bizarre peek into the thinking of a president who doesn’t fully understand the basics of our democracy. Elected Republican officials, in Trump’s mind, should focus on representing “Republican people.” Others may speak up and petition the government for redress of grievances, but as far as Trump is concerned, their voices are neither important nor relevant.
Republicans are elected to represent Republicans, the argument goes, not all of their constituents. It’s a zero-sum game: if your side of the political divide isn’t in a position of power, then you might as well sit down, shut up, and stop asking impertinent questions at town-hall forums in which GOP officials want to hear from “the Republican people” – as opposed to, say, the American people.
Trump made a similar comment on Twitter late yesterday:
“The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!”
Because the president doesn’t write well, it’s not entirely clear why he referred to “so-called” angry crowds. Perhaps he doesn’t believe people are genuinely upset? Maybe he’s convinced they aren’t actual crowds?
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MORE:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/annoyed-pushback-trump-takes-aim-progressive-activism
= new reply since forum marked as read
It must be quite the task for those dinosaurs to come to grips with the fact that there are people communicating with one another everywhere about what is really happening in those Town Halls, protests, postcard mailings, rallies, photo ops, and all those places where they could lie like cheap orange hairdos and no one would have the evidence to contradict them.
They can "Lyin' Media" all the want. WE are the media, and we can keep information moving.
I'm paraphrasing here, but basically he said - Of course they are activists! That's how our political system works. Eight years ago the right had the tea party activists & no one complained then. He then got a little jab in on Trump & said - the president doesn't seem to understand how our government works. 