The Only 2 Republicans To Hold A Town Hall In Utah Were Booed Out Of The Building

Utah's entire congressional delegation is Republican. Only two members tried to hold a town hall, and they were met with boos, and chants of "shame," and "do your job."

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Republicans Have Lost Utah

Utah is a place that has grudgingly supported Donald Trump. Many voters in the state have made it very clear that Trump’s behavior doesn’t fit with their values, but this is also a state where the majority is very conservative and Republican. Yes, there are Democrats in Utah, and we see you and how hard you work in a state where you are massively outnumbered.

Republicans outnumber Democrats in Utah by almost a five-to-one margin. Republicans outnumber unaffiliated voters nearly two to one.

Utah’s politics are very conservative.

The entire congressional delegation in Washington, DC, is Republican.

All of these facts make what recently happened at the University of Utah campus all the more impactful.

Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy held a joint town hall together, which could be viewed as a safety-in-numbers strategy put into place because the two House members had some idea of what they were walking into.

What they faced over the course of an hour was an unbelievable amount of constituent anger.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported:

Over the course of an hour, two members of Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation fielded boos and calls to “Do your job!” at a town hall on the University of Utah campus Thursday as they answered crowdsourced questions about what Congress is doing amid a flurry of executive orders and federal cuts from President Donald Trump.

….

The first question asked, because it received over 200 thumbs up from attendees, came from Brigham Young University professor Peter Reschke: “If the current administration continues to defy court orders, will you commit to call for articles of impeachment to protect our republic’s checks and balances?”

“I don’t think we need to impeach the president,” Maloy said, and explained she’s expressed a desire for more checks on the executive branch and believes lawmakers and the courts can do that. “I just think we need to watch the process play out.”

Members of the audience met that remark with outcries: “He’s breaking the law now!” and “Will you commit to articles of impeachment?”

“If you want me to answer questions, I’ll answer questions. If you want to yell, you can yell, but we can’t do both at the same time,” Maloy said.

“People are extremely angry!” a woman in the audience responded.

Here is a video of the town hall:

Rep. Mike Kennedy responded by asking law enforcement to come up because nothing says democracy like threatening angry constituents with the police.

The town halls are not isolated incidents, so let’s talk about what they mean for the country.