MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow kicked off her Monday evening show by highlighting the growing wave of protests unfolding across the country — a development she identified as “qualitatively different than what we had previously seen.”
And that includes at Tesla showrooms, which Maddow flagged as coming despite the Trump administration vowing to drop the hammer on protesters of the Elon Musk-owned electric car company.
“There's been almost too many of them happening right now to sum them all up,” Maddow told viewers as she profiled demonstrations unfolding at Tesla facilities nationwide, including in New York City, Colorado Springs and Pasadena, California.
“The American people this weekend showed in very large numbers that they are not going to be dissuaded from peaceful, legal, nonviolent protest for or against anything they want, because we don't need to clear that with the government because we are Americans, and it is our right to peacefully protest if we want to,” Maddow said.
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The MSNBC host added that when it comes to town hall meetings in particular, she has seen the amount of events popping up “just explode," — and the number of people turning out “just go through the roof.”
Even when a member of Congress doesn’t show up, as in the case of Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), “Americans just show up,” Maddow added.
“Americans are showing up all over in big and increasing numbers,” she told viewers. “We are starting to see these numbers, both of events and of bodies, and the number of people turning out at individual events, I think, tip over into something that's qualitatively different than what we had previously seen.”
Maddow concluded Monday that she is left with the impression that the anger boiling over at congressional town halls "are definitely not like a blue state liberal area phenomenon."
"They are that, but they are also everywhere else in the country," she said, adding, "including in places you would not necessarily expect to see them."
