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U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley held a town hall Saturday in Prineville, addressing election anxieties and opposition to the Trump administration.
“We’re going to turn this around, and we’re going to restore a democratic republic,” he said, speaking directly to audience fears and pointing to the forces that helped propel Donald Trump to power.
Roughly 100 people gathered in the Barnes Butte Elementary gym, where Merkley also praised the Crook County Green Bags Project for its work gathering nonperishable food and distributing it to local food banks.
Merkley outlined what he described as key strategies of authoritarian leaders, particularly exclusionary tactics that target specific groups. He said the two most powerful tools for defending democracy are citizen protests and elections. “Did anybody go to No Kings?” he asked, drawing loud cheers.
“Authoritarians use [exclusionary tactics] to make people feel afraid and angry, because then they’re willing to accept a diminishment of their democracy and a diminishment of their civil rights,” he said. “If there are no protests, people think the authoritarian actions are normal or acceptable or within the law or within the Constitution, but they’re not.”
He warned that if elections are rigged, the United States could face a prolonged period of authoritarian rule. He cited the recent Trump executive order seeking voter lists from every state.
Merkley criticized the SAVE Act (H.R. 1), noting that 69 million American women and 4 million men have names that differ from those on their birth certificates, which he said would make it harder for them to vote. He argued that the measure is designed to keep women, tribal members, and other groups from the polls and thereby rig elections.
“We’re not going to accept a list from President Trump on who can vote in our state, thank you very much,” he said, earning sustained applause. “It’s about stopping citizens from voting that the president doesn’t want to vote.”
He also condemned H.R. 1’s cuts to health care and nutrition programs and said he hopes November’s election will bring in leaders who will undo the damage. He admitted he is increasingly uneasy about the coming vote.
“Last year at this time, when voters would ask me at town halls, ‘Are you really concerned about the integrity of our next year’s elections being compromised?’ I’d say, ‘No, I’m not,’” Merkley said. “Now I’m really terrified about the Constitution.”
Merkley linked the rise of Trump-style conservatism to backlash against President Barack Obama, social and economic tensions exposed by the pandemic, the erosion of middle-class manufacturing jobs, and the broader affordability crisis.
“You have cultural change, you have economic change, and then you basically have frustration with the dysfunction of Congress,” he said. “When there’s cynicism over dysfunction of the legislature not doing its job, it invites the appeal of an authoritarian figure.”
