Crowds Are Packing Democrats' Town Hall Meetings Too-- Take Ro Khanna... Very Different From Mo Brooks

Buried in the new PPP poll about Trump's fights with the media was a question about town halls. PPP's conclusion is that "Members of Congress who dodge open town hall meetings may be opening themselves up to trouble with their constituents. 81% of voters think they ought to hold town halls, to only 5% who think their members of Congress should avoid them. That includes overwhelming majorities of Democrats (88/2), independents (81/2), and Republicans (73/11) who think members of Congress should make themselves available to the public in that way. Mitch McConnell (25/45 approval) and Paul Ryan (37/43 approval) are both unpopular, and Democrats hold a 46/43 lead on the generic Congressional ballot."

Crackpot and right wing extremist Mo Brooks (R-AL) is worried that some congressional Republicans are cowards and now getting cold feet after their encounters with angry constituents. He's freaking out that some of them won't help him kicking millions of Americans off healthcare. He was on the WBHP morning show Thursday and told the hosts that "there are a significant number of congressmen who are being impacted by these kinds of protests and their spine is a little bit weak. And I don’t know if we’re going to be able to repeal Obamacare now because these folks who support Obamacare are very active, they’re putting pressure on congressman and there’s not a counter-effort to steel the spine of some of these congressmen in tossup districts around the country." He called his colleagues' constituents all kinds of names. But speaking of cowards with weak spines, Crazy Mo, is too scared to meet with Alabama voters and adamantly refuses to have any town halls. He says he's worried someone may shoot him or his supporters or that Muslim terrorists will get them. Brooks, who represents a horribly backward Alabama district-- a hell-on-earth of poor white trash-- primarily in Huntsville, Florence, Scottsboro and Decatur across the northern 6th of the state, is in one of the safest seats in the country. Trump won it in November with 64.7% and ole Mo did even better.



Thursday the Blue America crew sat down with Ro Khanna and Ted Lieu for a few hours to talk policy. At one point, though, Ro told us about the town hall he had just had at Ohlone College in Fremont. He was only expecting around 250 people based on RSVPs. But when 900 showed up, they had to start opening overflow rooms. Although his constituents had very serious questions, the town hall didn't have much in common with the contentious town halls you've been seeing on TV with Republicans. What Ro had to say to voters primarily from Fremont, Newark and down the Nimitz from Milpitas and Santa Clara who packed the auditorium must have been music to their ears. The Democratic Party, he told them, needs it move in a more progressive direction.

In the 2016 Democrat vs Democrat general election, his long-time liberal opponent, Mike Honda, was a pledged Hillary delegate; Ro was a Bernie supporter. CA-17 isn't Trump country. Obama had beaten Romney there 71.9% to 25.5%. Hillary improved on that, eviscerating Trump 73.9-20.5%. Ro said where Hillary went wrong-- at least in the Midwest if not in California-- was when she started talking too much about Trump and stopped talking about how she was going to make people's lives better. "She was up when she was talking about making people’s lives better and unrigging the economy," he reminded the audience. The East Bay Times reported the next day that he "acknowledged the need to hold President Donald Trump accountable, and in response to a question from a member of the audience, he said he would support impeachment of Trump if an open and thorough investigation found evidence of violations. However, he said that right now, there are bigger fish to fry for Democrats, alluding to the 2018 mid-term elections."

“We are not going to win the next election, nor do we deserve to win the next election, by just focusing on Donald Trump’s missteps,” he said, adding that Trump voters were upset at leaders across the country, and felt the economy is rigged to favor a select few. He said Democrats cannot ignore those voters in their messaging.

“Shame on us if we don’t hear them,” he said, adding that his party must offer Trump voters a positive vision, with recognition of the “profound demographic changes” the country has seen.

“A vision that says, your life can still be good. Your kids’ life will still be good. We will help get your kids the skills to compete in a new economy. We’ll make sure that you don’t have to worry about retirement and health care,” he said.

Many in the auditorium seats flashed bright green signs that read “Agree,” and offered rounds of applause as Khanna said he believes the Democratic Party needs to be “far more bold, far more populist.”

The congressman said “it’s better in my judgement to have a slightly smaller party even, but a morally consistent party, than a party that doesn’t stand for anything,” a point he said the Republicans understand.

After Khanna said he supports a $15 minimum wage in response to a question, he doubled down on his idea that Democrats must be more bold in their actions.

He said he will be proposing a bill that would massively expand the earned-income tax credit to the tune of $1 trillion to help low- and moderate-income families, something he described as in contrast with “conventional” Democratic ideas, which would only offer a $60 billion expansion.

He chastised Republicans for claiming to want to help working-class families and the working poor, while pushing to give tax breaks to the wealthy.

When asked how his constituents can help create change, he said it’s important that they don’t underestimate the influence the average person can have, especially in the age of the Internet, when a viral blog post could get many more views than anything he says on the floor of Congress.

After spending about an hour in the main auditorium, Khanna traversed the campus to speak to another packed room, and reiterated many of the same points to that crowd.

Khanna told the crowds that he plans to hold monthly town hall meetings going forward to allow more people to engage, especially those who were locked out of Wednesday night’s gathering.

Ted Lieu and Ro Khanna are both avid supporters of Keith Ellison in today's DNC election, though neither has a vote. They both like Tom Perez but are certain that Ellison represents the progressive, grassroots vision of a more populist vision for the Democratic Party. I'm not certain when this document was released by Ellison of his first 100 days plan but it certainly in in synch with the messages we heard from both Lieu and Khanna Thursday, neither of whom shied away from the term "The Resistance."

Over the last several years Democrats have lost more than 940 state legislative seats, hundreds of congressional, senate and statewide seats and countless local races.

The job of the next DNC Chair is going to be incredibly challenging. It will require: juggling raising tens of millions of dollars; unifying Democrats; holding Trump, his cabinet and Republican-controlled states accountable; protecting the right to vote and creating opportunities to expand voting access; laying the foundation for redistricting; and recruiting, training and supporting candidates up and down the ballot.

This document lays out a framework for the first 100 days for the next DNC Chair.

ORGANIZING SESSIONS

All across America Democrats are mobilizing, energized and ready to take back our country. We need to harness this energy by holding organizing sessions in every single state so Democrats know what we are going to do to fight back the Trump administration and Republicans on a state and local level.

These organizing sessions will be collaborative and involve state and local party leaders, elected officials, labor, constituency groups and rank and file Democrats who want an active and meaningful role and voice in the party. We will work with state parties to hold organizing sessions in all 57 states and territories with the Chair and other senior DNC officials personally attending as many as possible.

We will pick locations across the country of strategic importance focusing on counties or locations where candidates did particularly well or poorly last election, and locations that are municipal or legislative priorities going into 2017.

ORGANIZING THE OPPOSITION

The DNC-- working hand in hand with state and local Democratic parties-- will seek to organize and channel the immense groundswell of opposition to President Trump and his policies.

The Democratic Party and its partners will support these activities and will create new opportunities to stand up against not only the dangerous policies of the Trump Administration but any Republican on a state or local level that makes it harder for Americans to achieve prosperity and inclusion.

These organizing rallies must involve unifying not only all Democrats, but Americans who are committed to building a world that promotes an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy and corporations, and an agenda where we have liberty and justice for all.

INCLUSION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Our party is at its best when it reflects the regional, racial, ethnic and overall diversity of the Americans we represent. We build an inclusive and accountable party by making sure that people have a seat at the table.

A 3,143-county strategy means that we bring everyone to the table. We will work to ensure that constituency caucuses are fully staffed and we have regular briefings and programmatic updates from the Chair and Department Directors to the DNC Executive Committee and state party chairs.

We will call a meeting of all of the caucus and council chairs to set metrics for evaluating the work that we are doing to ensure we are moving our party in a consistently inclusive and accountable direction.

...MESSAGING

We have already been holding Trump accountable on social media, via email and substantial research into his nominees. Our goal over the coming years is to hold every single Republican in the country accountable to the people they represent. Having two way communication from the DNC to partners across the country helps nationalize local fights and localize national fights.

We also need to aggressively remind voters for the Democratic Party and our candidates stand for. That means establishing an accessible and easily digestible version of our platform and disseminating it to county and state parties.

The DNC can help candidates get their message out by looking at bulk purchasing options, reducing any remaining barriers between the voter file and digital platforms and template pieces for down ballot candidates.