A town hall should invite dialogue, not humiliation

Dear Editor,

Every Mike Lawler town hall is fraudulent and an insult to his constituents.

I pay his salary; he is my public servant. And as my servant, I expect respect, but all I get at his town halls is insult and disrespect.

I always thought that a town hall was intended to foster a dialogue between our elected officials and the public – their employer. If I wanted to be lectured to, I’d go and hear a lecture – I wouldn’t go to a town hall. The congressman does everything in his power to suppress a dialogue in which you could actually get to the root of an issue and the congressman’s motivations. The Lawler town hall is a very specific process and no accident. Lawler always controls the microphone. He’ll drown you out with his volume if he doesn’t like what you have to say. His town halls are thoroughly undemocratic, perfectly in keeping with the tenor of today’s Republican Party.

If called upon, you get to ask one question and the microphone is immediately whisked away. There is no opportunity to ask a follow-up question, which would allow for a dialogue and getting to the truth of a matter. Often Lawler responds with a word salad of circumlocution, obfuscating with half-truths, and telling lies. The choice for those of us being lied to is to either sit there and take his lie or challenge it in the only way available to the public. There is no way to respond or question his assertions without raising your voice to be heard. In which case, you have to shout and Lawler then points and says something like: “you are being so uncivil…so immature…so shameful…” Making you sound like a crazy person.

Lawler loves it when his detractors have to shout to be heard so that he can paint them as unhinged crazies. That’s part of his strategy in his town halls.

If you want to hear the truth, don’t bother going to a Mike Lawler Town Hall. If you want to be abused and disrespected…by all means go.

-Nicholas Kuvach, Putnam Valley