Republican Congressman Dave Trott, 11th District Michigan, held a town hall meeting early this morning. It didn’t go well. He was met with many angry constituents inside the venue. Meanwhile, outside, more than 1,000 constituents had arrived before the doors were set to open only to be told they would not be allowed in because the room was “at capacity”. Some people who had arrived very early reported that the doors, set to open at 8 am, actually opened at 7:30 for people whose names were on a list – presumably Trott’s supporters.
Those thousand people stood outside in a fairly heavy snowfall, often chanting “Trott him out”, “What does Democracy look like? This is what Democracy looks like”, “Dave Trott has to go” and “We want a leader, not a creepy tweeter.”
The town hall event was held in Novi, an affluent Detroit suburb, at the Suburban Collection Showcase. The Showcase is a giant convention center named for The Suburban Collection, a company that owns 48 auto sales and service outlets in Michigan and California. The convention center and the Collection are owned by large Republican donors.
The facility clearly has huge capacity – in fact, later in the day, it was hosting a boat show. Nevertheless, the event was held in a small conference room with about 250 chairs and what seems to have been a no “standing room “policy.
The majority of the “town hall” involved Trott addressing the crowd. He did take a few questions, but they seem to have been managed. Audience questions were written on slips of paper and spun in a bingo type roller, but the person pulling them out worked for Trott and could easily have substituted softball questions for any uncomfortable questions.
Many of Trott’s constituents had driven a great distance from the more than 60 corners of his large and excruciatingly gerrymandered district early on a snowy Saturday morning after receiving a personal invitation from Trott’s office to attend. They were frustrated to have been denied any opportunity to ask the Congressman questions. The vast majority were even denied entrance.
A group of those denied access found their way inside the hotel and stood outside the town hall’s doors — which were locked — hoping to have a chance to express their concerns. That turned out to be futile. Immediately after his speech, the Congressman was whisked outside through a private door to the kitchen and taken to a private parking space, without having to talk to anyone who was not pre-selected and part of his managed show.
The whole event was reminiscent of a phone call town hall meeting he’d held on February 7 in which one of the first questions he asked on the call was was “do you approve of the direction this country is taking?” Callers were asked to dial in their answers. During that call, Trott admitted that 57% of the people on the line reported being unhappy with the direction. However, he actually only took softball questions from those who were happy. It wasn’t difficult to guess that he’d used the first question to filter out the subsequent policy questions he didn’t wish to address.
Since then, Trott has been under pressure from constituents and the media to hold a live town hall meeting. He finally held one. However, it is clear that for Trott, these events are 100% about managing his image and 0% about hearing people’s concerns.
Not surprisingly, even though Fox News and the conservative Detroit News sent reporters and camera people, there has so far been no coverage of the event on either outlet. However, other media picked up the event, including interviewing members of the crowd stuck outside:
http://www.wxyz.com/news/republican-rep-dave-trott-holds-public-town-hall
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/03/18/police-prevent-hundreds-from-attending-congressman-trotts-to