Republican Members of Congress Adopting the "Virginia Foxx Way" -- Never Face Your Constituents!

Virginia Foxx just does not hold town hall events where any of her constituents can come in and put a question to her. She did it once in Boone waaay back and never did it again. Instead, she holds bogus telephone town halls by which she can insulate herself and screen the questions.

With Republicans in Congress now trying to take away Obamacare from 20 million Americans, the people would like to be heard, and the Republican members of Congress who dared hold town hall events recently wished they hadn't. The natives are restless.

Take Senator Thom Tillis. Instead of facing his constituents, Tillis recently announced a live, 30-minute Facebook event during which he would take and answer questions. Tillis lasted exactly 11 minutes, with over 200 people clamoring to ask him his views on health insurance.

Tillis did not acknowledge any of the follow-up questions that popped up in the comments alongside his video, including requests for more details on the GOP replacement plan [for Obamacare]. But he did avoid the sort of viral spectacle that many of his fellow lawmakers have encountered over the past week as the debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act got underway in Washington.

Yep. Republican members of Congress are now very concerned about "YouTube moments," those instances of public outrage that get captured on camera and get replayed over and over to the embarrassment of Mr. or Mrs. Congressperson. The Tea Party was fueled by those confrontations in 2009. Virginia Foxx and her fellow cave-dwellers don't intend to let it happen to them in 2017.