Tolkkinen: Anti-Trump forces are fired up in greater Minnesota, ready to be heard

DETROIT LAKES, MINN. – Sen. Tina Smith sent a letter. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she couldn’t make it. So did Rep. Michelle Fischbach.

So the local chapter of the League of Women Voters held its own town hall meeting at the Detroit Lakes City Hall on Saturday. It drew more than 100 people, with attendees leaning against the walls and gathered in an overflow room, eager to talk or to listen to what was being said.

Most attendees identified themselves to me as liberals or independents. There were a few Republicans, including one who said he no longer votes for his own party.

In 2017, after President Donald Trump took office, I joined hundreds of women in Morris, Minn., who marched for women’s rights. Like them, I was distressed that he’d been elected despite his comments about sexually assaulting women.

This time, the concerns reflect the immediate impact of government spending freezes and potential cuts on the most vulnerable.

What will happen to Meals on Wheels? Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas has proposed eliminating the Social Services Block Grant program, which pays for the popular program that delivers meals to the elderly.

What will happen to homeless assistance grants? Under the Trump administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is no longer a reliable source of funds.

Lisa Skarie of United Church Home, which provides housing for seniors, said a Vietnam veteran she assists saw his military pension fall by half. Reached later, she explained that the 75-year-old’s rent check bounced in February, and when she investigated, she saw that his pension had been cut by about $550 a month, leaving him short of funds. She hasn’t received any explanation from the federal government.

Greater Minnesota is not overflowing with wealth. Dale Storey of the Becker County Food Pantry reported that 14% of the people in the county receive food from his organization. Given the steady rise in food costs since the pandemic, demand has also risen.

They were concerned about the future of Social Security and Medicaid. The Minnesota Republican Party platform calls for phasing out Social Security.

One woman said federal programs helped her after she left an abusive marriage and raised four kids on her own. The programs helped her feed her family, find work and complete a college degree.

“It is basic and it’s necessary,” she told the crowd. “It is not waste, fraud and abuse.”

Concerns went beyond immediate financial needs.

People were concerned about increased logging of the nation’s forests and about protecting the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from mining.

They worried about the political power wielded by the wealthiest Americans.

They want more government support for small farms.

One woman, married to a Canadian who holds a green card but is working in Malaysia, worries about whether he’ll actually make it home, given that other green card holders have been detained.

They worried that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, a bill that requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, will infringe on the voting rights of Americans, especially women who have adopted their husband’s last name.

And they worried about the loss of democracy.

Tim Monson, who described himself as a “semiretired surgeon,” said he often has to tell patients how sick they are.

“I’m worried that our democracy is ‘dying kind of sick,’ ” he said.

It’s easy to look at voting maps and see greater Minnesota as a vast swath of red and the Twin Cities metropolitan area as a pool of blue.

In reality, there are plenty of conservatives in the Twin Cities and plenty of liberals in greater Minnesota. But our system often denies the minority a voice. In safe seats, representatives don’t have to listen to the opposing party. The best of them do, but some don’t.

The danger in not listening to the other side applies to all of us, but especially to elected officials. We tend to get lax when our own party is in power. It’s the opposing party, keyed up and watching, that can sound the alarm about what we’re missing. Democrats didn’t march when President Barack Obama deported more unauthorized immigrants than President George W. Bush or when he championed the building of liquid natural gas terminals off the coast of Louisiana.

And you don’t hear the Make America Great Again camp rail on talk radio when Trump violates the First Amendment by punishing journalists for what they write or when he ships supposed gang members to El Salvador’s harsh prisons without due process, disobeying a judge’s order to turn the planes around.

So it behooves all of us to listen to the other side, whether in power or out of power. And to hold our own side to account.

Unsuccessful at the ballot box in recent years, unable to get their representatives to respond, greater Minnesota Democrats and independents are banding together.

Just as Trump supporters organized boat parades and “Trump trains” flying flags and banners bearing his name when he was out of power, the opposition is energized. They want to be heard.