The Backlash Against MAGA Has Begun

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Last week, at town hall meetings across the country, constituents clashed with lawmakers, Republican and Democrat alike, over anger about cuts to social services, DOGE’s chain saw strategy ripping apart the government, and general chaos that has become our everyday reality since Trump took office a little over a month ago. It seems people from rural Texas to suburban Connecticut to central Oregon and everywhere in between are paying attention, and they don’t like what they see. Could this be the rumblings of actual resistance? Let’s get into it.


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One of the more high profile town hall events happened over the weekend 


This recent report from AP caught my attention with the headline "Idaho town hall meeting turns chaotic after woman is forcibly removed for shouting at speakers"


I'm someone who really likes to know the SOURCE of the story I'm reading--who wrote it and published it--because that can really help to understand biases and other motives. But that gets difficult in our increasingly monopolized media landscape. Using the Ground News browser extension, it’s helpful to see that this news source has a left leaning bias. I really love the Ground News web browser extension because I can see it while I browse news articles, allowing me to understand biases in real time, and if I want to see how other sources are framing the story I can click full coverage.


On the Ground News website you can see that there are 40 sources covering this topic


Among them, the left publication The New Republic uses the headline:  "Woman dragged out of republican town hall after asking question."   while the right-leaning New York Post frames it as: "Idaho town hall turns into chaos after Dem legislative candidate dragged out by security for heckling speakers." Very different takes, and it's a clear example of how consuming news from only one perspective can limit your understanding of a situation.


This is where Ground News comes in - and why I've been using them for over a year. Today’s partner Ground News is an app and website that offers tools to help you critically analyze the news you read, providing context to understand the full picture. For example, I can see each publication's factuality rating, as well as the overall factuality ratings of publications discussing this story, so I know which is more trustworthy. And I can see who owns which publication, and that the overall ownership skews more towards media conglomerates than independent news outlets.


By using the Ground News Vantage Subscription, I can also see the blindspot feed where I can see stories disproportionately covered by one side of the political spectrum.I feel better equipped to make sense of what’s happening in the world without being influenced by just one perspective.


I’m always really impressed with Ground News and genuinely think they’re a great resource. If you want to stay informed on US Politics and more scan my QR code, or click the link in the description or go to ground dot news slash leeja to get 40% off the same Vantage plan I use which comes to about $5/month. Ground News is subscriber-funded, so they don't rely on ads that could introduce bias! Subscribing supports my channel and an independent team working to keep the media transparent. Thanks Ground News!


After a month of what’s felt like complete chaos for most people, including some Trump supporters, it seems the honeymoon is over. According to reporting from The New York Times and others, and I’ll link all my sources in the description, town hall meetings across the country are being held as Congress takes its first recess since the beginning of the new administration. These town halls are meant as routine opportunities for elected officials to meet directly with constituents to hear feedback, and they are events that are often punctuated by… nothing. Snores. Silence. Crickets. Parks and Rec is an accurate example. Not these days, however. Now Republicans at these town halls are facing what the new york times describes as “a groundswell of fear and disaffection” that’s making them rethink even holding town halls to begin with. And while many of the disgruntled voters voicing their anger in these meetings are Democrats, there are Republicans coming forward as well, concerned especially with cuts to veterans benefits, social security, and medicaid, and the security of American data in the hands of a foreign born tech billionaire. The uproar in town halls, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people showing up, is happening in Democratic districts, as well districts where Republicans barely hold onto power AND even in some deeply red districts. It’s happening in rural Texas, the suburbs of Atlanta, in Wisconsin, in Oklahoma, and in Democrat-led districts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Journalists are likening it to the rabble-rousing done by tea partiers at town halls in the wake of Obama’s election and subsequent push for healthcare overhaul. The difference now seems to be that the angry voices aren’t united behind one far right ideology and instead come from disparate groups, with even some constituents coming to ask how their elected representatives will do MORE to tear down the government. I think this illuminates a truth in this country and that is that literally no one is happy with how things are going. Well except for the billionaires. They’re happy. But even staunch Republicans are starting to balk at the fast moving MAGA chain saw. According to reporting from Slate, 8 Republicans wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson last week warning him that quote “slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open.” Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has warned against cuts to Medicaid, as has Steve Bannon.


And recent polling backs up the anecdotal on the ground evidence that, statistically speaking, people are pissed. A washington ipsos poll found that Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 45 percent. And Elon’s is only 34 percent. And I love that reporters aren’t even covering what Vice President JD Vance’s approval ratings are because he’s the forgotten nerd in the corner who doesn’t get invited to the cool kids table. Can you think of another President who routinely made interview appearances with some random aid more than his own VP? I think that bodes well for the fear on the left that JD Vance will pick up the torch after Trump inevitably succumbs to his love of McDonalds, an event I’m still shocked hasn’t happened yet but I’m also not convinced they won’t try to put his brain in a jar and build a Trump robot out of desperation because there really isn’t a person that can rival the populist appeal of Trump, but putting baby JD Vance in a corner certainly doesn’t help build him up in Trump’s image. 


In that same poll, 57 percent said Trump exceeded his authority as president, and 52% disapproved of the Elon Musk power grab. Another poll found that 55 percent of voters think Musk has too much power, and a Reuters Ipsos poll found that 62 percent of respondents didn’t think presidents should be able to fire federal employees that don’t support him. That same poll found that 58% of respondents worried about delays in social programs like student aid and social security.  According to reporting from Slate, a YouGov poll found people are generally dissatisfied with a whole host of controversial recent moves: renaming the Gulf of Mexico, dropping corruption charges against Eric Adams, tariffs, and more. People are also not loving his deportation efforts against non-criminal immigrants and those here legally under refugee programs. According to Slate also, quote, “CNN found that 62 percent say he hasn’t gone far enough to reduce the price of everyday goods, such as egg.” Saying in another article “More and more Americans are asking: Did Trump take egg?” And while lefties on Bluesky are trying to make Trump take egg a thing, where you post a picture of empty egg shelves and say “trump take egg” because it’s a simpler message that Americans might actually understand, the reality is that Trump didn’t necessarily take egg, but it turns out that despite the media frenzy around egg, people are actually pretty pissed about a lot of other things. Though egg remains top of mind as prices have risen about 80 cents per dozen since Trump took office, which means the cost is on average $4.95 for 12 egg. 


So polls are showing the same thing that Republican lawmakers are experiencing back home in their town hall meetings: the high profile moves taken especially by Trump and Elon are generally pretty unpopular. And people want to know what lawmakers plan on doing to take control back in the legislative branch. When Representative Rich McCormick held a town hall in the suburbs of Atlanta, one attendee asked him how he plans to “rein in the megalomaniac in the white house.” Others were mad about cuts to the CDC, an Atlanta-based agency. He then claimed that the centers for disease control could do more with less because a lot of the CDC’s work is duplicative of work that AI could be doing, which received a lot of boos from the crowd because people generally also are not thrilled to hear that lawmakers and billionaires are gunning to replace jobs with AI. The confrontation at last week’s town hall has pushed McCormick to change his tune, saying Monday that quote “I think we’re just moving a little too fast” calling for impact studies to make sure we understand the impact of this cutting spree before enacting it. And this is in a firmly held Republican district, McCormick won his seat with two thirds of the vote last year. This response and willingness to actually voice dissent for the fast pace of the MAGA takeover could signal a shift–that the voices of angry constituents showing up at these town hall meetings actually matter. Because unlike Trump and Elon, who get to sit in the White House and ignore the little voices screaming from down below, these Republican lawmakers have to actually answer for the things Republicans are doing. It makes it very real when there are actual humans sitting in the same room as you telling you they’re angry and asking you what you plan to do about it. That sounds like my worst nightmare frankly!!! It’s also why Republicans tend to hold fewer town halls than Democrats and often hold those town halls in controlled settings like over the phone so they can continue to pretend that their heinous governing decisions definitely benefit everyone. No one is being personally hurt if I can’t see them!! The Republican empathy problem–I don’t care unless it’s directly impacting me–is overcome by the human response to being face to face with another person telling you you hurt them. Usually. There are still Republican lawmakers who hear the pleas from voters and say BRING OUT THE CHAINSAW. And for those who are human but don’t want to face the music, some of them are just deciding not to hold any more town hall meetings at all. According to NBC news, GOP leadership is now advising lawmakers that if they “feel the need” to hold town halls, they do so in more controlled settings, like phone calls as I mentioned or by vetting attendees to avoid scenes that go viral, but mostly GOP leadership, according to aides, is urging our elected officials to stop engaging in in-person constituent meetings like town hall events altogether. A spokesperson for the RNC told NBC that, despite this outpouring of anger, quote “The president's policies are incredibly popular, and the American people applaud his success in cutting the waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars” also saying "Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch, far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing." The problem is that that is not what’s happening. As I said, reporting on the ground indicates that there are Democrats and Republicans alike lambasting their elected officials, and LORD KNOWS there is no concerted or well-organized effort on the left to astro-turf Republican town halls, lol give me a break. Astroturfing is a term used to indicate the opposite of grassroots. Get it–astroturf, it’s fake grass roots. Grassroots movements indicate that they happen from the ground up, locally, whereas astroturf movements are where outside people or organizations bring in outsiders to make it seem like there’s a grassroots groundswell of support or opposition to something, even though these are people and organizations that don’t even live there [she doesn’t even go here.] If you read the book Dark Money you’ll learn that astroturfing was actually popularized by right wing operatives to counter genuine left-wing grassroots work some 50 years ago, and was used extensively by the Tea Party movement as well, but that’s cute that you think the left has the money, resources, or organizational structure available to execute something like that, though. In reality, that RNC statement is simply attempting to shake off the very real fear of backlash radiating throughout the Republican party, as viral clips from some town hall meetings, like in Idaho where a woman was forcibly zip tied and removed by what appeared to be private security forces after voicing opposition, or former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe calling MAGA a Nazi movement and being arrested and carried out of a city council meeting in California, that those clips will have ripple effects that hurt Republican lawmakers chances of winning especially more vulnerable districts in 2026, which could hurt the razor thin Republican majority in Congress.


And while I think elected officials’ reluctance to hold more town halls because of this angry outpouring is pure cowardice because they literally work for us and actually now that you mention it I WOULD like to see five bullet points on what they did last week. I will say this is demonstrating a belief long held by political theorists of a certain ilk, and that is that leaders should fear those they govern, and not the other way around. That idea is often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson but was actually first published in a debate on socialism from 1914. The full quote is “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” I don’t think it’s quite so black and white as that, but it certainly feels cathartic to see the leaders in fear of the people for once, after decades of watching them operate above the fray with billionaires lining their wallets in ways that make them feel untouchable. And to see at least one GOP official change his tune a little bit in response to this blowback shows there is power in what I have been advocating for since Trump took office and that is to be annoying as fuck to your elected officials. 


In addition to these town halls, a growing surge of demonstrations have had people taking to the streets to voice their discontent. Democrats are organizing protests outside the offices of especially vulnerable republicans like representative Mike Lawler of New York, but also at the offices of Democrats who many, myself included, say are not doing enough to stop the onslaught. After a demonstration at the New York offices of Chuck Schumer, a group of voters got a closed door meeting with members of Schumer’s staff. The grassroots activist group 50501 created an outlet for people wanting to take to the streets in organized protest and spread organically from Reddit onto other social media with the idea of protesting in all 50 states on one day. They did so on February 5th and again on President’s day, February 17th. They have another protest day scheduled for March 4th and have put together a website for events, communication, toolkits and information. They have partnered with a number of orgs including Political Revolution, a PAC that originally formed to support Bernie Sanders in 2016 and now calls itself “a political action committee dedicated to progressive grassroots activism.” I think the unique formation of this organization–truly out of thin air via social media that manifested in actual in person real world action, led to a lot of press coverage which has helped the movement grow. 


An additional grassroots movement has formed around an economic blackout, scheduled for February 28th, that’s this Friday, calling for everyone everywhere to not make any purchases or shop anywhere for a full 24 hours beginning midnight on February 27th until midnight on February 28th. This is also getting a lot of press coverage and was reportedly organized by The Peoples Union USA, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement dedicated to economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform.” The organization has also called for weeklong blackouts of individual companies like Amazon, Nestle, and Walmart, as well as additional 24-hour total economic blackouts moving forward. You can learn more about the demands at the peoples union usa dot com, though I will say it seems like it’s a brand new thing that’s just led by a single guy named John Schwarz and like… listen. Every movement has to start somewhere so I’m not interested in being a debbie downer naysayer if this is gonna bring power to the people, you know. I think the demands he lists on his website are interesting, he claims to be nonpartisan and wants economic justice, healthcare for all, calls for an end to the commodification of basic human needs like water and shelter, I think if spun correctly there’s a lot here that could appeal to people across the political spectrum in a way that I think is sorely needed right now, because it is the monied interests that control our government and hurt all of us that we’re all ultimately pissed off about, collectively right now. I’m just. Idk. One white guy with a website? I hope he partners with some people that have track records of organizing that can help kinda broaden this coalition, if you will, ya know? I need a little more to fully trust what’s going on, ya know? Rumors swirled online that popular historian Heather Cox Richardson was involved in the February 28th boycott but she quickly made a statement saying she was not involved in any way. Here at Why America with Leeja Miller we’re really concerned with sources, biases, motivations. I’m interested in giving the benefit of the doubt here I’m just *flagging* this. Just keepin’ an eye out, ya know? 


Separately, Black church leaders are calling for a 40 day boycott of Target during Lent starting March 5 to protest the corporation’s cutting DEI programs, and the Latino Freeze Movement is calling for spending freezes to protest other company’s removal of DEI programs.


According to reporting from axios, quote “decades of research into boycotts suggest they often end up having a counterintuitively positive effect, as a larger, silent majority votes with their dollars by shopping instead of staying home.”


According to reporting from CBS, however, quote “"Very often boycotts do not actually lower the sales of the boycotted organization substantially," says Distinguished Professor Koen Pauwels of Northeastern, an expert on online activism. He says effective boycotts need to be easy for people to participate in, make specific demands, and harness the power of social media. 


For instance, after the Parkland School massacre in 2018, an anti-gun group got Starbucks to ban guns from its stores after a Saturday-only boycott. Pro-Ukraine activists have persuaded 1,000 corporations to stop doing business in Russia simply by putting the names of those that do online.


And one woman's online campaign helped force the end of Ivanka Trump's clothing line in 2018. 


"You can vote with your money, you can vote with your feet, and you can vote in elections," notes Prof. Pauwels. "And I think the other ways to vote have been underused."”


So while I’m skeptical and concerned about organization and sources and who’s calling for what, and there is evidence that general boycotts don’t do much, the momentum towards boycotting isn’t necessarily misplaced. The demands need to be more specific, however. Perhaps there really could be an impact if enough people boycott Target, for example, and call specifically for reimplementation of DEI initiatives. Because ultimately Target is going to make a business decision based solely on its bottom line: which will cost more, the threat from Trump for keeping DEI initiatives or the threat from consumers if they’re ended. Right now, the company has determined their bottom line will be better if they fall in line with Trump. There is nothing other than a bottom line that will influence companies to do anything, so voting with dollars is the literal only thing we have to control them, cuz lord knows our lawmakers aren’t going to be regulating them anytime soon. 


And finally, in addition to the growing unrest at town halls across the country, large grassroots protest movements growing out of the peoples’ desire to take to the streets to voice their frustration, and a growing interest in boycotts to force the hand of big business, another act of resistance I read about today that I wanted to highlight is happening over on Bluesky, the lefty answer to Twitter, where, The Guardian recently reported, a “secret network of federal workers resisting DOGE from the inside” have started altgov accounts for various government agencies, similar to what happened on Twitter during Trump’s first term, but instead happening on Bluesky because the literal owner of one of our major communications platforms is also deeply implanted in a White House that disdains dissent and isn’t afraid to squash it out so like yeah they’re not going to do this on Twitter now that Elon owns it. The hashtag AltGov network has around 40 accounts, including Alt CDC (they/them), Alt Fish & Wildlife Service, RogueFEMA, and, recently, Alt Library of Congress which hit the bluesky scene two days ago with the post “Where is my fam? #altgov”. The members of the altgov group are internally vetted to ensure people posting actually work where they say they work. Posts range from memes to general government criticisms but also importantly to confirming or denying official White House reports about whats going on inside agencies, and sharing stories and information with the public about what’s happening on the ground and action requests either to other government employees or to the public. I’ve linked the Bluesky starter pack made by AltSpaceForce1 with all the altgov accounts and posts in one place in the sources, linked in my description, it really is a sight to behold. 


My main point in laying out all of these growing movements fueled by anger at this administration is not only to illustrate a bigger picture that resistance is growing in real time, that people are paying attention and they’re pissed, which for me personally instills some hope for our collective future, which is something we all could use right now, but also to demonstrate the importance of even small acts of resistance. This all feels very disparate and unorganized right now but I’ve spent the last couple months studying, along with other members of the Co-Learning Lab I lead on my patreon, historical movements as well as more recent movement building in the US and abroad, and I’m here to tell you as far as I can tell these things always take time and they are never simple well-oiled machines, especially not in a country like the US with 330 million people across millions and millions of acres of land with tons of differences from race to creed to everything in between. Sitting and waiting for the perfect form of resistance, the perfect movement or organization, means you’re just going to be sitting and waiting. Movements, even successful ones, never coalesce perfectly and never end in perfect victory. The Civil Rights movement was messy and disparate and successful in many ways but also fell short of the ideals of many of its leaders. The slavery abolition movement led to war and yes to an end to slavery but also to the beginning of new forms of disenfranchisement and segregation that we’re still dealing with today. Movements towards progress and equality are imperfect and move frustratingly slow. They require showing up over and over and over again. It’s not one protest, one day of boycotting, one election, and finally it’s all fixed. It’s showing up over and over again and not making giant all-encompassing actions but instead regular and daily tiny acts of resistance. It’s federal workers creating secret altgov accounts, it’s cancelling your Amazon Prime membership, it’s showing up to a meeting for a local activist organization you’ve been interested in, it’s meeting your neighbor and exchanging phone numbers, it’s taking to the streets to protest repeatedly, it’s showing up to vote in every single election you can. It’s so slow and frustrating but what’s the alternative? Would it have been better if abolitionists decided this is going too slow and the outcome probably won’t be what I want so I’m going to shut up and stay home? If civil rights movement leaders said hmm this boycott probably won’t do all I want it to do so it’s not worth it to me. It’s slow and it’s frustrating and it’s never enough and it will always fall short of expectations and yet we show up and do tiny acts of resistance in whatever way we can anyway because the alternative is acquiescence and that’s not the life or legacy I want to lead. And you shouldn’t either. And I think it’s important we change the goal posts for our expectations around organizing and resistance, because if we acknowledge and accept that it’s always going to feel a little messy, slow, frustrating, and never enough, that whatever change our actions creates will always fall short of our ideals, then we’re moving the goal posts to something more realistic, which we need to do if we’re gonna play the long game. So pick your battles and do what you can with what you have, but for fuck’s sake do SOMETHING. I hope these tales of resistance happening right now around the country make you feel a tiny little spark of hope, cuz that definitely is what I’m clinging to moving forward.


If you’d like to join me, I just launched the Why, America? Co-Learning Lab, a learning community having discussions and making connections, along with a monthly syllabus curated by me. All year we’ll be covering topics under the umbrella theme of “Eat the Rich: Building Solidarity in the New Gilded Age.” February’s topic is all about how to build a movement, even when you’re feeling overwhelmed as hell. This is all hosted over on Patreon, which is linked down below. If you’re interested, please join us. Patreon dot com slash leeja miller.


Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Thomas Orf, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, R_H, L’Etranger (Lukus), Joshua Cole, Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you! 


And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from Monday where I rant about how Democrats don’t have a plan yet keep emailing me for money.


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