Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman took on a hostile town hall crowd in Laramie on Wednesday, but wouldn\u2019t back down. More than 500 gathered, many yelling curses to the point of local Democratic Party chair saying he\u2019s \u201cheartbroken\u201d by the behavior.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Leo Wolfson<\/p>\n\n\n\n LARAMIE \u2014 U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman walked right into a hornet\u2019s nest Wednesday night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 500 people packed into the Gryphon Theatre at the Laramie Civic Center for her town hall, with at least 75% there to oppose her, a startling dynamic in the deeply Republican state of Wyoming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It continued a trend of Democrats and those who oppose President Donald Trump and his policies, and Hageman\u2019s support of them, challenging her during a series of her events over the past week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things in Laramie turned ugly from the get-go, with some people screaming profanities and flashing the middle finger to Hageman as soon as she took the stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Hageman would not back down, staying on stage for more than 45 minutes and telling the audience that they were behaving in an embarrassing manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one point she urged them to stop screaming or they might have a heart attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hageman told Cowboy State Daily after the event that what happened Wednesday is common in college towns across America these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s what happens in those communities. They\u2019re not capable of listening to someone with a different opinion,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re too immature to have a dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, many of the people protesting Hageman on Wednesday were well past college age, and they brought protest signs with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Wilhelms, who organized a pre-town hall rally against Hageman, told Cowboy State Daily before the event that he appreciated that she was holding the town hall despite not agreeing with her politics. But much of the audience didn\u2019t show the same appreciation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilhelms and Albany County Democratic Party Chair Klaus Halbsgut both promoted the event beforehand as an opportunity to conduct civil discourse with Hageman and let her answer their questions better than a similarly raucous town hall in Rock Springs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Halsbgut said absolutely nothing was achieved Wednesday, lamenting that the heckling was out of control and not productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are better than this,\u201d Halbsgut told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t represent Albany County, I\u2019ve lived here too long. I\u2019m heartbroken. This is not who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also suspected that some of the most raucous in the audience were not from Albany County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilhelms said he also was disappointed by how the evening went, but he and Halbsgut also said Hageman didn\u2019t help matters throughout the evening, at times answering questions in what they saw as a condescending manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary Sptiler agreed, and said she often receives this condescending tone when she gets responses to the letters she sends to Hageman\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy whole take on her is that she was condescending,\u201d Spitler said. \u201cI feel badly a lot of people didn\u2019t let her speak, but that\u2019s the way she is to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"More](\"https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.imgix.net\/Hageman-Laramie-town-hall-IMG_5194.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&q=75&auto=format%2Ccompress\")
Not Proud<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n