Democrats ramp up town hall offensive in GOP districts with focus on Epstein
Source: The Hill
07/26/25 6:00 AM ET
House Democrats are ramping up their town-hall blitz in GOP-held districts over the long summer recess. The strategy is not new, but this time they’re armed with a powerful new talking point: President Trump’s refusal to release the federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The Epstein case has rattled Republicans in the White House and the Capitol, forcing Trump to defend uncomfortable connections to the late financier and convicted sex offender, while prompting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to scrap last week’s legislative plans and mount a hasty exit from Washington to preclude Epstein-related votes.
Trump’s defiance on the files has put him at odds with the same core loyalists who helped propel him to power — a clash over a foundational MAGA doctrine that Trump himself had helped to promote. And Democrats are only happy to watch the unraveling, however long it endures, and goad it along when the chance arrives.
“Let them destroy each other. If we have to throw a log on the fire, we’ll do it,” said one House Democratic aide.
It’s not that Democrats will abandon their central message under Trump’s second term, which accuses the president and congressional Republicans of breaking promises to lower costs for working class consumers. But they want the Epstein case to complement that theme, arguing that Republicans — whether through tax cuts for the wealthy or refusing to release the Epstein files — are protecting the interests of powerful “elites” at the expense of everyone else.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5421312-epstein-democrats-town-halls/
= new reply since forum marked as read
On "Kitchen table ....issues of tariffs=taxes=inflation, Medicaid cuts, etc."
AND IT WAS IGNORED
Too many people here in the U.S. are, by nature, intentionally blinding themselves to such esoteric and "academic" (although obviously important) issues, in many cases, attributing the warnings to "hyperbole". IOW, they will only respond to "gut desires", "tribalism" and a primordial sense of being a part of a group that has similar expectations. They may complain about "inflation" but have no idea what it really means and will suddenly get defensive if "labeled" as some "lower class" entity if they can't afford something.
It took a horrible economic calamity under Shrub (literally leading up to 750,000 people laid off PER MONTH) to propel Obama into office in 2009, and a pandemic, that not only killed that many jobs but eventually killed that many people, to push Biden over the finish line in 2021.
The sad coda for this is that people are literally willing to take A LOT of "pain" before they see the light because they convince themselves that they are invincible or at least "better than" someone else.
This is what "voting against your own interests" has become.
