Republicans’ efforts to avoid heated protests are rallying the opposition in one battleground House district.
Thorsten Landwehr was outraged that Van Orden would use his public platform to suggest that they were paid puppets. He started to object and then paused, overcome with anger.
“You know it just means it’s working,” said Cyndi Greening, the 68-year-old leader of a new chapter of the activist group Indivisible, from across the table. “That’s it.”
Around the country, a beleaguered Democratic resistance was stirring to life. Voters outraged at President Donald Trump and his empowerment of billionaire Elon Musk were holding protests and venting at their Republican representatives in Congress — packing into public listening sessions even in solidly red districts and causing such a stir that GOP leaders this month urged tele-town halls instead.
Angry constituents and liberal groups such as Indivisible — founded after Trump’s first election in 2016 — have only been emboldened, seeing an opening for new activism and attacks that Republicans are “hiding.” With House members back home in their districts this week, Democrats have organized their own town halls across the country while taunting top GOP targets.
Minnesota governor and former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz visited Van Orden’s hotly contested district Tuesday night for his own event. And a bright-red billboard has gone up in Eau Claire — the work of a liberal group called Opportunity Wisconsin. “Have you seen our congressman?” it reads. “Call and demand he hold a town hall.”
Van Orden says he does not want to give a platform to people who will be disruptive. Last week he answered pre-submitted questions from the public on a tightly controlled Zoom call, saying he had to go virtual because town halls in many states were being hijacked by protesters.
“I find that completely disrespectful to the people that are attending the town hall who want to be able to speak directly to their representative,” Van Orden said.
Many Republican officials have blamed the town hall drama on paid protesters, without providing evidence that they were hired — the same accusation that some Democrats once levied at conservative tea party protesters during Barack Obama’s presidency. Town halls tend to attract people with strong political opinions, including members of activist groups, but those attendees bristle at accusations that their constituent concerns aren’t genuine.
“Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings … it’s not going to work for them!” Trump wrote recently on Truth Social. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) echoed the claim.
When a GOP senator responded to Trump’s post — “Can confirm,” he said — Van Orden chimed in with: “Same here.”
Speaking on local radio, Van Orden also likened the tactics of the town hall “agitators” to those of communists and the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group. He said he was getting harassing calls and death threats.
And if anyone was disruptive at one of his meetings and refused to leave, he warned, “we will have them arrested and charged with a Class B misdemeanor.”
‘We deserve to be heard!’
Chippewa Valley Indivisible, which Greening started last fall, had a total of 28 members on Inauguration Day. Now they’re at more than 500 — thanks, in part, to Van Orden.
At first, members said, they wrote to the congressman requesting a public forum; a Van Orden staffer eventually agreed to sit down with 24 people at the local library. Then, a registration link began to circulate beyond Chippewa Valley Indivisible, and suddenly — the day before the meeting — 112 people had signed up.
Van Orden’s staff canceled, saying they had been ambushed, but people showed up at the library anyway. The next day, a local business association moved its meeting with Van Orden after members of the public tried to RSVP there, too.
“We will admit, the NLBA has never had the public wanting to attend our meetings previously,” the North La Crosse Business Association wrote in an email revoking a registration. “We did not realize that it would be assumed this was a public meeting. It is not.”
Ashley Haines, a spokeswoman for Van Orden, said in a statement that constituent services are the congressman’s “number one priority” and encouraged any residents of the district to reach out with their concerns.
House Republicans had just passed a budget framework that called for steep spending cuts, which policy analysts said would be virtually impossible without reductions to Medicaid or Medicare. GOP leaders insisted that they would simply target Medicaid fraud, but a backlash was building. Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, meanwhile, was slashing programs and jobs across the government in its search for savings.
In Chippewa Falls, a doctor in Indivisible was hearing from patients concerned that they would lose their Medicaid coverage. A single mom did who did consulting work for international aid groups was canceling her dental appointments because half her business was suddenly gone. The weekend after the canceled library meeting, the Indivisible meeting was packed.
On March 8, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) came to town for one of several rallies meant to energize opposition to the Trump administration in competitive, Republican-held districts. Greening was set to speak, and she was nervous; she’d never done anything like it before.
