Breaking: Rank-and-file Democrats and other people who don't want the world to go to hell are furious and ready to fight back, and they’re ready to drag their elected representatives along with them. The ask is different for congressional Republicans and Democrats, of course. Democratic lawmakers are learning that just kinda sorta fighting isn’t going to be enough:
The urgency of the moment is not lost on the party’s leading 2020 hopefuls. Many of them — including Warren and fellow Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris — abandoned their schedules two weekends ago to appear at protests in their home states or in Washington, grasping the imperative to be both public and distinctive in their opposition to Trump’s executive order on refugee travel. [...]
Democratic pols at every level have instinctively reacted to the idea that party voters are demanding a response commensurate with the scale of the perceived threat. After many of them caught grief for missing the women’s marches to appear at a donor conference the previous weekend, for example, three of the candidates for Democratic National Committee chair rushed to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston to protest publicly after their candidate forum on Jan. 28.
Republican lawmakers are also facing new pressure, from constituents who are mobilizing to demand a hearing. When a group in New Jersey couldn’t get a meeting with their representative, Rodney Frelinghuysen, with his staff claiming it would be difficult to find a place to meet:
… the group, NJ 11th for Change, secured venues in all four counties that Mr. Frelinghuysen represents for times during the congressional recess this month — and constituents plan to show up even if he does not.
Some House members haven’t had as much luck dodging their voters:
“The women are in my grille no matter where I go,” Representative Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican, told an audience last week. “They come up, ‘When is your next town hall?’ And believe me, it’s not to give positive input.”
May it continue for years to come.