Marshall says paid agitators swamped Kansas forum. If he proves it, I'll eat a copy of Project 2025.
You might think that after being humiliated by a rowdy town hall crowd in Oakley, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall would take some time to reflect and reconsider his deep-fried MAGA approach to politics.
You'd think wrong.
Two days after the fracas, where Marshall threatened the crowd and left early, he decided to salve his wounds by posting on Twitter. Rather than admit that he turned his back on his fellow Kansans, he called them fake. What a terrible way for any politician to react.
Let's be honest about what Marshall and President Donald Trump suggest.
Trump suggests that Republican town halls across the United States are overrun by protesters paid to be there on behalf of the Democratic Party. This would be the same Democratic Party that tried to run Joe Biden for a second term and lost control of the U.S. House, Senate and presidency. Right.
In his amplification of Trump's message, Marshall asks us to believe that this party then somehow trucked these operatives into distant Oakley.
Again, right.
If Marshall or his staff possess documentary evidence that the Oakley town hall was packed with paid operatives working for the Democratic Party, they should make that evidence public. (No, tweets about voting totals in Oakley don't count.) If it's accurate, I will gladly eat a copy of Project 2025.
I'm not exactly sure how I will ingest it — the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a Republican presidency weighs in at nearly 900 pages. Perhaps I will have to eat a summary or just the title page. However, I am absolutely certain that it will not come to that because the statement is simply untrue.
Now, there are other ways to parse Trump and Marshall's words.
Perhaps liberal advocates attended the meeting. But just because someone supports one side or another doesn't disqualify them from attending a town hall. Perhaps someone connected to the state party was on hand to capture video. Republicans send such folks to Democratic events and vice versa. Both sides have done so for years.
But neither of those things means the event overflowed with paid plants. Trump and Marshall want their supporters to believe that people with concerns don't count. In the words of Marshall's chief of staff: They're not 'real Kansans.'
Roger Marshall is never going to start voting in lockstep with Bernie Sanders. But I don't think the people assembled in Oakley wanted him to do that. They worried about how disruption in Washington has affected their fellow Kansans. Recordings of the full meeting show that attendees asked serious, good-faith questions. Rather than engage with their concerns, Marshall threw a hissy fit.
He should listen to Kansas House Minority Leader Brendan Woodard, who also posted on Twitter.
I understand that this puts Republicans in a bind.
I understand that no politician wants to look weak or cowardly. If you're carrying water for an authoritarian administration, where projection of strength counts above all else, you must ooze virility from every pore.
I can even understand the advice from U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, that GOP lawmakers avoid in-person town halls. House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested they turn to telephone town halls or small events. From a purely political vantage point, it makes sense.
But it sure doesn't serve those real Kansans that Marshall professes to care about.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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