“The congressional town hall is becoming an endangered species,” Kate Santaliz writes at Axios. As the Congress goes into its late summer recess,  only 11 of its 535  members show such events on their August schedules.

Coming less than three months before all 435 members of the House and 35 members of the Senate are up for election or re-election, the recess seems like a fortuitous, perhaps even urgent, time for the candidates to seek face time with voters. But they don’t wanna. Why?

Part of it, I suspect, has to do with technology.

Social media keeps politicians in seemingly closer touch with their constituents, or at least their biggest supporters and detractors, than “town halls” could back in their heyday.

It’s become cheaper and easier to produce and widely distribute campaign ads of both “short commercial” and “long faux-news coverage” types than ever before.

Some politicians, including “my” “representative,” even do “town halls” by phone. They’re able to carefully curate both the audience (by only robocalling the people they want to reach) and the questions they have to answer (you record your question and staff selects it for inclusion or exclusion).

The purpose of political events these days isn’t so much retail public engagement as it is the production of sound bites for campaign use that’s more controlled and enjoys more reach than a huddle with a few citizens at a high school auditorium.

But the main reason for real, physical, local “town hall aversion” is the possibility of embarrassing confrontations with the angry sector of the public in question. And there’s ALWAYS an angry sector of the public, no matter which party the politician in question affiliates with or what policy positions that politician takes.

We’ve all seen it on TV. In fact, it’s generally the only part of a “town hall” event we ever DO see on TV outside of actual campaign ads.

Not the congresscritter getting applause for a new bridge in the district or a program that provides prosthetics to amputee cats or whatever.

Rather, the congresscritter getting an embarrassing question, on a controversial position or act, from one of THOSE people, followed by boos from the crowd, sometimes followed in turn by unfriendly physical interactions and/or the politician fleeing in terror.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but that kind of thing can be worth many thousands of votes … for the poor, bedraggled, harassed politician’s opponent.

The same technology that’s more effective than town halls for positive “outreach” is also more effective for negative “outreach” — getting an opponent’s public discomfiture in front of many eyeballs.

So you can see why “town halls” are quickly becoming, as software people like to say, “deprecated.”

And, honestly, I think it’s a good thing for the public as well.

I grew up in an age when the “town hall” and “candidate forum” were just as carefully orchestrated, but far more effectively than now.

I attended many such events, and was even occasionally one of THOSE people. I once caught a US Senator into an outright lie, and another time flustered a US Representative into giving two wildly inconsistent answers to the same question, with press present.

Alas, Twitter and YouTube didn’t exist back then. Heck, camcorders were high-price-tag items back then. Now they do exist, and one misstep can tank a politician’s whole hoped-for results if someone presses “record” or “go live” at the right … wrong? … moment.

High technology combined with uncontrolled public interaction unmasks politics for what it is — a bunch of crooks lying TO you to get power OVER you. No wonder they’re running away from that.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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