While Sessions predictably stressed that the Democratic administration of President Biden was dysfunctional in all things, the congressman often faced complaints about the state of Texas ranging from its highway troopers to its executive agencies to its courts. A couple of people took shots at Waco Mayor Dillon Meek on such matters as local hospitals’ decision requiring that all staffers and contractors be vaccinated – a private decision over which Meek has little to no authority.
By evening’s end, a crowd that ordinarily complains that government too often overreaches was often complaining because government doesn’t overreach enough.
A man in a cowboy hat complained that his son, a veteran, was jailed on “false charges” concocted by state troopers and nearly killed and that no lawyers would accept the case in fear of state judges. A husband and wife each took long turns railing over the state’s scuttling their parental rights and how the allegations against the father involved "an accident that my child had with a dog" and his mother-in-law’s leveling false sexual charges against him. Their solution: Audit county family courts and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for “egregious, systemic, terroristic abuse.”
Mercifully for everyone, Sessions agreed to meet privately with folks about their complicated and very personal problems. But the rage of about a third of the audience of 125 or so in the University High School auditorium was clear to all: We want our government and we want to eat it too.
While the town-hall fireworks skirted debate over the Jan. 6 insurrection that some constituents blame Sessions for encouraging, many last week cheered storm-the-Bastille rhetoric. This included fighting words from a “Navy veteran” blasting the “Brandon administration” (new insulting name for the Biden administration) for an “unconstitutional edict” mandating vaccination of 100 million people and a June White House memo and report suggesting those who question federal COVID-19 policies or the disputed 2020 general election might constitute domestic terrorists.
“In light of these egregious actions on the part of the federal government, I demand that you work with your colleagues in Congress to draft, propose and pass resolutions that publicly declare the Brandon administration a rogue administration that is operating well outside its enumerated constitutional authority and is therefore a lawless administration,” he told Sessions. “I also demand that you draft, propose and pass legislation that blocks any federal agent or agency from enforcing any of the rogue Brandon administration’s unconstitutional usurpations. And, lastly but most importantly, I demand you stand in solidarity and unanimity with the people in this room, the people of Texas and the hundreds of millions of Americans affected by the unhinged, out-of-control Brandon administration and say to the lawless Brandon administration: I don’t know what's going to happen at the end of this, but if you want a fight, you better believe you got one!"
Sessions’ response after the cheers and applause died down: “Go Navy!”
Incidentally, the June White House materials cited also state that “the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat are (1) racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race and (2) anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, such as militia violent extremists.” As for the vaccination mandate, it’s tied up in the courts. For the record, the mandate would allow for medical or religious exemptions. And, yes, those who decline vaccinations would have to submit to regular testing. Unvaccinated employees would have to wear masks at work at some point. Oh, and don’t expect invoking of the Nuremberg Code — cited during the Sessions town-hall meeting in a burst of wild anti-vaxx passion, complete with an ominous if ill-founded warning of the penalty of death — to count for much in federal courts. The code was never folded into U.S. law.
Another individual identifying himself as a veteran who had seen duty in the Mideast described President Biden’s initiative to battle the epidemic of veteran suicides as a thinly disguised effort at gun control extending more power to the hated U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He complained that VA authorities still fail in the simple scheduling of appointments and follow-ups for veterans – and that those veterans securing appointments must then deal with "bottom-of-the-barrel doctors."
“He's put [forward the Reducing Military and Veteran Suicide initiative] in order to pass a gun control bill to gain favor with voters, but that doesn't have anything to do with it,” the veteran said of Biden. “If we want to help veterans, we need good, qualified doctors at the VA, appointments available, good follow-up and we actually need access to mental health care, which we don't have right now. Can you please expose this for what it is and get veterans the real help we need that we have been denied for years? We've been asking for this over the last three administrations."
The few of a moderate or progressive mindset who aired counterpoint were easily dismissed, including one who with some justification resented the adjective “socialist” so often applied to all Democrats. (Sessions’ crowd-rousing response during this meandering exchange: “I am not a wallflower.”) One questioning Sessions on a new state election law revealed the ignorance of them both: Barring a last-minute emergency, a doctor’s note is not required for a disabled person to vote by mail in Texas. (Republican state Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, sitting nearby, should have stood up and clarified this for everyone unless, of course, he too didn't know this fine point in the legislation, revised and reworked throughout the spring and summer.) And one who fenced with Sessions over a controversial stock he purchased missed the more important question: Should lawmakers with so much inside knowledge even be allowed to trade stocks?
A rundown on the pandemic by Dr. James Ferguson, a pediatrician introduced by Sessions, only added to the end-of-times aura, especially in a crowd openly hostile to mandatory vaccinations. Ferguson predicted the virus will not only accelerate in spread after Thanksgiving but continue throughout the next decade. And, he said, “you will all get COVID.” Whether one survives, he said, depends on various factors.
Dr. Ferguson’s insights came the same day a new report by the Texas Department of State Health Services showed our state’s unvaccinated in all age groups were 45 times more likely to contract the coronavirus bug than fully vaccinated people – and 40 times more likely to die. Yet when Dr. Tony Fauci’s name was innocently raised by Dr. Alan Xenakis and Registered Nurse Audra Renee-Smith – guests of the congressman – scattered boos went up in the auditorium.
Sessions did honestly explain that federal legislation depends on votes – and his vote counts no more than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s. Yet the failures of the Biden administration leave Republicans well-poised to return to power: "When I was chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee [in 2010], we won 63 net seats. That meant the Democratic Party lost 63 net members of Congress. They paid the price for their agenda. Get ready."
Sessions may be right. If tradition holds and Republicans win Congress in 2022, prepare for more gridlock, showmanship and ugliness. And if President Biden displays further incoherence in his messaging, brace for another Trump administration in 2025. And if the craziness, crankiness and constitutional transgressions that characterized Trump’s narcissistic first term characterize his next, prepare for Democrats to then return to power. That’s assuming by then we still have a constitutional republic to keep.
