Dear editor:
Leo Wolfson‘s account of Rep. Hageman’s town-hall meeting in Laramie yesterday evening was accurate enough. He omitted two small but significant details that might account for Laramie’s robust reaction to the representative’s pitch.
Leo worked the front of the theater for much of the event. He would have seen the shenanigans. He might have reported them, but didn't. Maybe he thought them unimportant, or it was edited out.
The initial venue for the town hall meeting in Laramie’s civic center was one of its smaller meeting rooms. People queued for more than an hour to ensure entry.
Then, without explanation, the waiting crowd was told that the largest venue in the center, the historic Gryphon theater, would be used instead. By the time the crowd filed downstairs to enter the Gryphon, they discovered the front four center rows of seats were largely preempted for MAGA supporters.
A mystery indeed!
The second detail is odd yet readily explained. Although the theater was standing-room only, with some 700 or so attendees, the public initially had no access to a microphone to ask questions.
Rep. Hageman took questions only from people at the very front of the theater. There were inaudible to most of the audience. Harriet then repeated them – some heavily paraphrased or framed – before responding.
Here is an example, from memory.
A young person asked a question about LGBTQ+ rights. It was a long question. When Rep. Hageman went to her microphone to respond, she said it was about trans people. Her response: trans people don’t exist – next question please.
After the event I asked two Gryphon sound engineers why a microphone was not made available from the get-go for people asking questions. They said it was. But they were instructed by Rep. Hageman’s handlers it wasn’t to be used.
Silencing tactics like these are objectionable and undemocratic. MAGA, of which Rep. Hageman is a part, seeks to queer the pitch when dealing with opponents.
The Tea Party, which helped given birth to the most recent right-wing iteration of the Republican Party, was not known for its tolerance to opponents. What goes around, comes around.
I had the good fortune to sit next to a Republican.
She was disturbed by Harriet’s effort to spin the meeting.
There is an augury there.
Sincerely,
Donal O'Toole, Laramie
