Dear Bill,

No disrespect intended. I am extending the courtesy you offered your callers over the weekend by using your first name. I get that. Being called by your first name lends an air of casual friendliness.

You conducted yourself well on the phone. You listened intently to most of your callers, offering help wherever you could. You gave assurances that all will be well with retirement and health benefits, despite the reports many of your callers have heard. You tried to be the calm voice amid a sea of worry and confusion.

I understand why you prefer virtual town hall meetings. There is a civil orderliness to it all. No angry interruptions or face-to-face confrontations. The one gentleman who lost his cool and yelled, “Bullshit" as he hung up his phone was met with a gentle rebuke by you. He had crossed the line. We can’t have that. You and your organizers met your goal.

And yet, as these civil town hall meetings ended, I was more upset than I was at the beginning. Entering your virtual town hall meeting was like putting on a headset that was to simulate real life but failed. Let me explain.

Like a good foot soldier in the MAGA army, you defended Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk whenever you could.

Musk, other than some ill-advised tweets you said, was doing a good job of rooting out waste, inefficiency and fraud and with full authorization from each governmental department head. What you didn’t share was that Musk has made decision after decision, whether approved by any department head or not, without the consent of Congress which is solely responsible for the funding of these programs. Quite a different reality, yes?

As for Trump, well he knew exactly what he was doing when he pressured Zelenskyy to the peace table. You too have had it with funding Zelenskyy’s corrupt Ukrainian government. When he requested more supplemental aid you voted against it because Zelenskyy couldn’t account for $1 billion of military expenditures. (By the way, how much does our defense department waste per year, per month, per day?)

But you made no mention of Trump’s humiliation of Zelenskyy, his dissing 80 years of NATO alliance, his revisionist history of who started the Ukraine conflict and his cozying up to Putin. For Trump, it’s the art of the deal, right? Who’s willing to offer us more minerals, more money? Advancing democratic values, protecting a country’s right to defend itself from foreign invasion, just outdated virtues! I believe your silence about these realities had something to do with that rude gentlemen’s outburst, don’t you?

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But it’s all about staying calm and cool amid chaos, isn’t it? And making sure that you don’t have to face unruly people in town hall meetings who are dazed, angry or just plain hurting. Keep them at a distance ... keep it virtual. Don’t let the full force of their anguish enter in. It’s just too messy.

I think, Bill, that is what was so distressing for me after I left your town hall of virtual reality. When your simulation doesn’t match the reality around us, it begins to feel crazy. When civil discourse becomes an exercise in political control, authoritarianism starts rising.

Nothing nice or civil about that.

— Peter Everts is really a resident of Holland.