OPINION: Trickle-down Disdain

Donald Trump and his Project 2025ers don’t bother hiding their contempt for the vast majority of humanity. And It’s become increasingly clear that all too many GOP politicians would much rather butter up donors and party bigwigs than face angry constituents and therefore the consequences of supporting this regime.

Longtime critics of its wars on democracy, other people and whatever country its commander in chief feels like invading are frequent objects of that scorn, but so are MAGA devotees who are nonetheless smarting from Trump/Project 2025 disasters like the two ICE concentration camps planned for my red area of Pennsylvania.

If the purchases of the properties in Schuylkill and Berks counties weren’t so underhanded, anyone here would have told the Department of Homeland “Security” that both are nowhere near equipped to handle the influx of prisoners and workers. 

And even after the deeds were filed, local officials – mostly Republicans – have had to beg for more information. 

Maybe DHS views the upheaval it will cause as collateral damage from its mission of inflicting fear, pain and misery on its scapegoats du jour. Or maybe it doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Our GOP Congressman Dan Meuser, who somehow became the liaison between DHS and both counties’ commissioners, is making his priorities clear.

He’s shied away from the commissioners’ meetings, where residents have been objecting to the concentration camps for weeks. But he made time for a fundraiser at the Schuylkill Country Club on Feb. 26 — the same day Berks’ commissioners met and the day after Schuylkill’s did.

He didn’t go to any of the town halls on this issue, although the various local organizers invited him. Rather than listen to constituents at ICE Out of Upper Bern’s event in Shartlesville last weekend, he chose to fundraise and hobnob with the Dear Leader himself at Mar-a-Lago.

Rachel Wallace, his Democratic challenger who held a town hall in January and attended No Skook Detention’s earlier this month, told the 150 or so attendees in Shartlesville that she’d thank Meuser if he used his Florida trip to push back against the concentration camps.

He didn’t, even though DHS might slow its hare-brained expansion. Instead, he’s urging local leaders to work with a notoriously untrustworthy regime in hopes that it will somehow make these torture chambers and the accommodations needed for them a bit less awful. 

Disrespect for Democrats

Meuser’s avoidance of his critics is nothing new. Schuylkill Indivisible, which I co-chair, had to prod and shame him for nearly seven years before he held a public, in-person town hall where constituents could challenge his MAGA propaganda.

The tone at the December event at Alvernia University’s Pottsville building was mostly civil, but he often bristled at pointed questions. 

So it looks like he screened out certain constituents from his Jan. 27 “constituent social” in Sunbury. Northumberland County Democratic Chair John Merchlinsky told the Daily Item that most of his party’s committee members who responded to the “last-minute” announcement received “over capacity” emails.

“It seems the selection of constituents allowed to attend was rather selective,” he said. Meuser’s office didn’t respond to the paper’s request for comment.

No political questions for politicians?

Schuylkill Indivisible member Helen Sluzis was shocked when state Treasurer/GOP gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity said she’d welcome Trump’s help with elections in Pennsylvania after he hinted at a nationwide — and unconstitutional — federal takeover.   

Helen wanted to hear more when Garrity appeared on a telephone town hall hosted last month by her state rep, Dane Watro, who shamelessly fawned over his guest before abruptly ending the call 11 minutes early.

At the beginning of the meeting, Helen put her question in the queue but was never called on. A couple of days later, a Watro staffer called and said her question was “too political.”

Whoa! Since when are election rules political? And aren’t Watro and Garrity politicians?

Stood up by McCormick

U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick’s recent “phone-y” town halls were head-spinning and head-scratching experiences for me.

One of them was scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, a date that actually fell on a Wednesday. When I called a couple of his offices for clarification, I got identical perky recordings but no reply to the question I left.

Still, I RSVPed and learned I’d get a call at 6 p.m. on the 27th.

The phone didn’t ring until McCormick had almost finished his introductory spin. It was too late to ask my question about then-unconfirmed reports of the concentration camps. 

I turned to the “Contact Dave” form on his website and received a canned response touting Dave’s responsiveness to constituents. And it included a link to register for another telephone town hall at 5 p.m. Feb. 11.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I registered, hoping to ask about both DHS’s now-confirmed concentration camp plan and the SAVE America (from Voters Opposing Trump/Project 2025) Act.

This town hall’s time and date were also changed, to 7 p.m. Feb. 10. And I never even got a phone call.

Note: I also tried to reach McCormick’s press person, but if he has one, they’re harder to find than intelligence or integrity in the Trump/Project 2025 regime that he and other MAGAs extol.

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Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.

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