By Emily Hill, Stephanie Hilbert and Alicia Soliz
Rep. Garamendi, we your constituents have a simple request: on Tuesday, Feb 28, when Donald Trump gives his first address to Congress, we want you to call him a liar.
As you’re no doubt aware, and as discussed in detail in this Washington Post article, many of your colleagues are trying to decide whether or not to be seen shaking hands with Trump as he walks up to the front of the chamber. Hopefully you’ve already recognized that shaking hands with Trump is a terrible idea. How could you possibly help normalize a president who wants to ban a whole religion, who scapegoats immigrants, who openly brags about sexually assaulting women, who won’t release his taxes or recuse himself from tremendous conflicts of interest, who most likely was coordinating with Russian intelligence services to get himself elected, and who tells lies like other people breathe… how could you shake hands with that? A photo of you smiling and shaking hands with Trump would haunt you –absolutely haunt you – for the next 15 months until the Democratic primary, and probably for the rest of your life.
But Rep. Garamendi, simply avoiding Trump is insufficient. And we don’t want you to cower in the back hoping that nobody notices you’re in the same room as Trump.
No, we want you to call Trump out on his lies. When he gives his address, and when he gets to his first tremendous lie, whatever it is, we have three simple words that we want you to yell out: “Trump, you’re lying!”
That might strike you as extreme – what about the rules of decorum, you might ask – but Republicans have already set the precedent. You might recall that in 2009, during President Obama’s address to Congress, Republican Joe Wilson yelled out, “You lie!” It didn’t matter that President Obama was actually telling the truth. Wilson not only was not penalized for this “breach of decorum,” he actually used the video to raise a tremendous amount of money from the Tea Party.
So please don’t claim that “it’s against the rules” or “impolite.” The future of our republic is more important than your sense of politeness. When Trump says that he had the biggest inauguration crowds in history, speak for your constituents: “Trump, you’re lying!” When Trump says that his attempted ban of Muslims went “extremely smoothly,” speak for your constituents: “Trump, you’re lying!” When Trump mentions the Russian investigation and says “the leaks are real but the news is fake,” speak for your constituents: “Trump, you’re lying!”
Rep. Garamendi, we your constituents won’t be in the chamber on Tuesday, but you will be. We want you to be our voice. Call Trump a liar.
Emily Hill, coordinator for Indivisible YOLO. Stephanie Hilbert, coordinator for Indivisible Yuba Sutter. Alicia Soliz, coordinator for Indivisible Fairfield and Vacaville.
Good guerilla theater, but we need more than a show of contempt from our representatives. We need a concerted effort to to investigate, indict and convict edited of treason.
[moderator] I have repeatedly had to edit your posts because of name calling. Stop doing it or I will just start removing them entirely.
In just over a month, the Trump administration has been defined by its bumbling ineptitude, its dangerous disrespect of the Constitution, and, perhaps above all, by its unabashed disregard for the truth:
The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry of Falsehoods
Defined? Defined by who? The biased fake news mainstream media?
Defined by reality–not by simply parroting one of the administration’s lies about the media.
What, the Huffington Post? That’s not reality, that’s biased left wing slanted opinion.
The list of demonstrable verifiable falsehoods speaks for itself.
I thought we prohibited the misuse of “fake news” on here?
Another term your blog is going to have scrubbed?
There’s lots of fake news when it comes to stories about Trump.
How is that misuse of the term? When writers make up stories using unknown unnamed sources it FAKE NEWS, You see it almost every day in the media.
Writers are not making up stories. Unnamed sources are basic to journalism. It is only fake news if it is intentionally fabricated. You know this, but you keep misusing the term, just as Trump does. I wonder why.
They do fabricate stories about Trump intentionally. You probably don’t see it because it’s my guess that you detest Trump too.
Example, please?
Such as? Sadly, even if they don’t like Trump, they don’t need to make things up.
“Defined? Defined by who? The biased fake news mainstream media?”
I would say defined by outcome.
1.Resignation of Flynn for cause = poor vetting on the part of the administration.
2. Need for sanctioning of Conway for illegally huckstering of family products using her position of power to leverage her commercial statement.
3. Travel ban so poorly written as to make hang ups in the courts essentially inevitable.
4. Initial decision not to hear official security briefings. Ill considered attacks on our nations military and security systems ( all in his own words), not as “spun” by any media undermining necessary trust and functioning.
I am firmly in support of the calling out of lies wherever they are found. I would like to propose an alternative to the blatant show of ( completely earned) disrespect called for by Emily. That is to note every single lie, and call them out immediately after the speech and repeatedly as every one becomes pertinent to the issues being addressed both in the Congress and on the streets of our country.
Why do I not espouse calling them out during the speech ? I remember just how offensive I found it for a member of Congress to shout liar at President Obama. I believe in leading by example, not doubling down on offensive behavior. I agree with John that what is truly needed is thorough reporting, investigation and ultimately indictment and removal from office if POTUS is found guilty and will not resign. I also believe that we should vigorously resist any attempts to undermine our constitution and system of checks and balances. We are a nation of laws, checks and balances and procedures. It is this that we are seeing challenged by our current administration. We must adhere to our time honored processes if for no other reason than not to provide an excuse to over ride them completely in the name of “law and order”, aka dictatorship. If we will not model best behaviors when out of power, how can we possibly argue for the same from those in power with any credibility ?
I agree, Tia. Garamendi could tweet about Trump’s lies. He could call a press conference. He could write op-eds. Or all of those things. I’d like to see all of those things. I think ultimately if they would be more effective than yelling out while Trump was speaking.
Personally I hope all the Democrats yell and call Trump a liar while he’s speaking so America can see again and again how unhinged and unreasonable Democrats have become and helping insure 8 years of a Trump presidency.
If you are waiting for Garamendi to do this, I think you’ll be waiting a very very very long time. In other words, it will never happen. But thanks for confirming that Republicans have acted in an unhinged manner in the past.
Garamendi might not but he’s just one of many unhinged Democrats. Please, please I hope they act up and become unruly. Let America see first hand how hysterical they’ve all become.
Obama often lied, did you liberals call him out?
Can’t defend Trump so attack Obama
You can’t defend letting Obama slide for eight years and not allowing his name to hardly even be mentioned on your blog without the comments being deleted or edited. Funny how as soon as a Republican becomes president there’s now an almost daily onslaught against him on the Vanguard.
His name wasn’t allowed only when it was off-topic and because you and Frankly tried to inject it into local conversations.
How many stories did you write or appeared on your blog about Obama in the last 8 years? You’ve had more articles about Trump in the first couple of weeks than you had about Obama over his whole two terms
More than you think. I shifted away from covering it after 2012 Election because it was distracting from local issues, but the news environment has shifted and local reaction to the Trump administration was not something that we could ignore. So, we modified the approach.
For the record I stopped at 20 pages of Google hits at: Obama site:davisvanguard.org which means at least 200 articles. You’re welcome to do a more thorough inventory and get back to me.
I do not speak for other “liberals”. I did indeed call out Obama when I thought the his statements and/or actions were incorrect, factually or morally. Just one example from the Vanguard. I wrote my article comparing the movie Snowpiercer to the policy of blocking entry to children fleeing dangerous situations well before the time of the current POTUS.
Verifiable in the Vanguard archives.
“how hysterical they’ve all become.”
Note the use of the word “all”. Please quote even one “hysterical”, “unhinged” or “false” statement that Garamendi has made about POTUS. If your claim is that you are not talking about politicians, please quote a statement of mine that has been “hysterical”, “unhinged” or “false”. I have been very careful to quote POTUS and his supporters when making claims of what he has said and done. I am eagerly awaiting your examples.
I am further waiting any rebuttal that you might offer to the plain fact that POTUS and his associates have been demonstrated factually to lie repeatedly. I suspect that you simply do not care about this since you believe that he is “your” liar.