On Tuesday night as President Donald Trump spoke to Congress, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon sat in the chamber and, when the subject of Ukraine arose, held up a blue and yellow Ukraine flag to show solidarity.
Oregon’s other senator, Ron Wyden, wasn’t there but he was plenty busy. For two hours, he answered questions at an online town hall.
Key items in the Trump speech included transgender people, buying Greenland, “wokeness,” mass deportations, praise for Elon Musk (and his DOGE operations) and opposition to semiconductor manufacturing.
The subject matter and the tenor of the Wyden discussion was a lot different: Medicaid and Medicare, firefighting, tariffs, Social Security. Threats to the constitutional order, Ukraine and budget cuts among them.
The participation was open, though the questions and online comments leaned strongly Democratic. A few people – or possibly in some cases bots, as some commenters suggested – took Trump’s side, but nearly all were either supportive of Wyden’s critical stance or complaining that it wasn’t tougher. Andm, for an online town hall held by a senator from one state, it was robust in size: More than 3,500 questions from more than 5,000 participants; both groups included people from all 36 Oregon counties, as well as a few from other states. .
Comments poured in at a rate of one a second or better over the two hours. Most reflected some of these sentiments:
People, Oregonians, are going to die without access to health care. It won’t just be “hard times”. It won’t just be “sacrifice a bit”. We will die. If our elected officials cannot fight for us, we will not survive possibly even this first year, let alone 4 more.
What legal actions can we as regular citizens (not wealthy) take to help stop this madness?
how can wed stop Trump and Musk from destroying our country. I am concern about loosing my Medicare.
How do we save SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare?
Our democratic institutions are being dismantled in front of our eyes. Congressional Ds need to lead a coalition to push back hard!
If they cut Medicaid the way they have proposed, every single member of congress who votes for that is complicit in murder. People will die if they make those kinds of cuts to Medicaid.
Oregon Medicaid covers my home caregiver and that service is critical for me as a disabled person.
no kidding – I volunteer witgh North Plains Food Bank and we are seeing rapid growth in need.
Why would we need a drug-addicted depressive to take a chainsaw to our government? BTW, the poverty rate in Argentina is 50%, and that’s who TRusk wants to emulate!
I want to know what our recourse is when SCOTUS lets us down again and we have no further recourse. What comes next if the Supreme Court doesn’t support us because they are of course in Agent Orange’s pocket as has been demonstrated in many situations,
They’ve always wanted to privatize social security and if it was we’d lose everything as stock market tanks. AS IT IS NOW
We receive electricity from Canada. Will Canada attach tariffs to our electric, impacting our bills?
Trump is heading towardsa Dictatorship, what are the Dems doing? People are scared! HELP!!!
Many of the others came from a similar perspective but with a harder edge:
I read Republicans are now getting death threats (a Dem lawmaker was the source–he’d heard it from colleagues). trump also threatened Stormy Daniels years ago…it’s part of his toolbox. So it’s not just fear of their jobs, it’s fear for their lives …
Address how we stop Trump and Musk.
With all due respect Senator, Democrats are not doing enough, you’re playing by the old rules of decorum when we live in a world of NO RULES.
This convo is too tame imo. Level 10 catastrophe being treated like a level 4.
is there anyway pressure can be put on Bentz to break with the Republicans?
For his part, Wyden had plenty of hard talk himself: “We’d like an alternative to Donald Trump’s no-reality … I think Elon Musk is stomping on the constitution … [DOGE activities at the Social Security Administration are] a warmup for a privatization of social security … [On the cutting of foreign health assistance] I think this is a four-alarm fire.”
It may have been an online town hall, but it was very much of a piece with those Wyden and other Oregon elected officials, and some officials elsewhere, have been holding in recent weeks.
It may have suggested some of the terms of conversation to come.
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