Top Dem super-PAC looks to capitalize on protests of GOP lawmakers
A top Democratic super-PAC is set to launch a new website spotlighting the growing protests some GOP lawmakers are facing back home over their support for President Trump’s agenda.
American Bridge 21st Century, the liberal group run by Clinton ally David Brock, is launching a website called “SpinelessGOP.com” to act as a clearinghouse for videos of Republican lawmakers facing confrontations from constituents.
“Republicans are literally running away from their own constituents out of fear they’ll have to answer for Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda,” said American Bridge president Jessica Mackler.
{mosads}“Whether it’s embracing Trump’s racist Muslim ban or voting to take healthcare away from 32 million Americans. Rather than admit they’re marching to Trump’s tune, these spineless Republicans are using every excuse in the book to avoid their own voters.”
Republican lawmakers have faced rising anger from liberal activists in their home districts. Protesters are confronting the legislators at town-hall events to demand they keep the Affordable Care Act in place or oppose Trump’s temporary ban on refugees entering the country from Muslim countries.
These encounters are being covered extensively by local media. In some cases, videos of GOP lawmakers responding to their critics or fleeing the crowds have gone viral. In one case, a Republican lawmaker in California left a townhall event over the weekend with a police escort.
The American Bridge website will pull these videos together to highlight “the terrified antics of Republican Senators and Congressmen as their constituents demand accountability for their support of Trump’s disastrous agenda.”
Democrats are hopeful they can turn the rising energy on the left into electoral victories in 2018. The party is seeking to rebuild from a devastating 2016 cycle, in which they lost the White House, control of the Senate, and saw their ranks decimated at many state governments across the country.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer has derided the liberal activists as “Astroturf,” rather than grassroots, and has claimed that some of the protesters are being paid.