OP-Ed Analysis #3 Dems host town hall meetings in health care gop districts by steve benen5/11/2017 http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/dems-host-town-hall-meetings-health-care-gop-districts
Democrats have been needing an inroad to attempt to weaken the power of the Republican Majority in the House and Senate, and they may have just found a way to do just that. After the passing of the new Republican Health Care act in the House days ago there has been a strong backlash from constituents and some republicans who voted for the bill have remained silent. Democrats have seized on the opportunity to possibly shift district leanings in two states. The strategy is simple, call the Republicans out on why they voted for the bill, hold an impromptu town hall meeting and wait for the Republicans to not show up. This was the story covered by Steve Benen on the 9th of May. In what was a far more reserved article then usual Benen keeps to his political leanings while also showing off the benefits of this new strategy from the Democratic party. Benen’s liberal opinions come out once again in this article, “The Republican representative in the neighboring district, Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.), backed his party’s regressive plan, took his office’s phones off the hook”(Lines 5-9). His use of regressive points out his thoughts on the bill. He isn’t trying to keep it hidden. Benen believes that the bill is harmful and backwards and he isn’t afraid to show it. This type of concrete diction continues on, “Rachel [Maddow] described it last night as a “new form of protest,” which it clearly is. I also think it’s quite clever.”(26-29) This ‘clever’ is used to clearly show what his opinions of the strategy are. The idea of holding town hall meetings to slowly turn Republican or Moderate constituents into Democratic constituents isn’t just smart to Benen, it’s ‘clever’. This denotes a feeling of ingenuity and pioneering about something that Rachel Maddow described as a “new form of protest”. Throughout the article, Benen’s tone on the action stays consistent. It’s a much more academic tone, while still trying to sound somewhat conversational it maintains a much less excited tone then in past articles. This is visible when he is discussing the reasons for the town-hall meetings, “The Republican representative in the neighboring district, Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.), backed his party’s regressive plan, took his office’s phones off the hook, and decided not to host a local event to explain to his constituents why he’d voted for legislation that would do so much deliberate harm.”(5-12). Normally Benen would have been all over an action like this. Instead he maintains professionalism and doesn’t use it as a chance to attack the Republican party, other than the use of regressive.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorArchives
May 2017
Categories |