NORTHAMPTON — It wasn’t the coffee that had the people inside the First Churches of Northampton energetic and on edge Saturday morning. Some 500 crowded into the church shoulder to shoulder, mutually distressed about the state of national politics — and they voiced those concerns in a coffee hour town hall with U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern that lasted close to two hours.

“When are Democrats going to stop showing up with knives to a gunfight?” one person in the audience blurted out.

Another frustrated audience member told McGovern, “A lot of us don’t think you’re trying to win. ... Your party is part of the same two-headed snake.”

Both comments filled the room with resounding applause from McGovern’s progressive constituents.

Researchers, immigrants, veterans, people with disabilities, trans-identifying people and progressive voters from throughout western Massachusetts all vented countless frustrations with the Trump administration.

But just as powerful were the voices of those who showed up to berate the Democratic Party for its powerless responses, including Gov. Maura Healey, long a champion of undocumented migrants, who in late December made clear that Massachusetts was not a sanctuary state — thus cowering in the defense of immigrants, said some attendees.

They also fumed over immense federal funding cuts being made by the president and the reversal of former President Joe Biden’s clean energy initiatives and the rights of trans people being stripped away. And many were curious how the Democrats allowed “fascism” to take over all three branches of the federal government.

McGovern, who is on the House Rules Committee, wasn’t defensive on Saturday as much as empathetic to the fear and loathing. He shared that even the mindfulness advice he received from the Dalai Lama has proved insufficient while living in Trump’s America.

A major contributor to that anguish for him is the fact that Trump’s ideas have even gained traction in Massachusetts, a dependably liberal state. For McGovern, that’s a wake-up call that his party will need to face before midterm elections in 2026.

“People are buying into this garbage,” he said.

But he also hyped up the base, reminding those in attendance that “every act of pushback matters.” He outlined efforts by Democrats and others in trying to slow the Trump agenda, either in Congress or by judges blocking or delaying executive orders, and a flurry of lawsuits being filed nationwide.

“We’ve got to recognize that power doesn’t concede anything without a fight,” said McGovern, who represents the Hampshire County communities of Amherst, Belchertown, Hadley, Hatfield, Northampton, Pelham and Ware, as well as most of Franklin County. “We are not going to defeat Trump by sitting back and waiting. We need to make demands. We need to break outside our bubbles.”

The congressman said that pushback might have to come in smaller actions rather than a grand moment of resistance. “I don’t think it’s going to come from one big act,” he said. “It’s going to come from a million small acts.”

He assured his base that the Democratic Party is cracking down, will come back and that they are taking a route that is sometimes pragmatic but uncompromising. One example of pragmatic actions, he said, is Massachusetts lifting its designation as a sanctuary state to protect federal funding. But the party is also uncompromising in its advocacy for trans persons, the positive role of immigration and more humane ways to balance the federal budget, McGovern said.

Part of Democrats’ plan must include making friends with three Republicans in Congress.

“Three Republicans,” McGovern repeated, saying it would give the Democrats voting leverage.

“There are a number of Republicans across this country who won reelection by a percentage point or less. Clearly, clearly we can have some influence on that,” adding that “we can’t take our eye off the ball, because politics is about addition.”

Addition is doubly important, he explained, because Democrats are powerless right now, since without a majority they are not able to call congressional hearings.

“The Democrats aren’t perfect, but they’re nuts,” McGovern said of the Trump administration and Republicans more broadly — a statement that met raucous applause.

McGovern said that even Trump’s base didn’t vote for the “shenanigans” the president has been pursuing and asked the room whether anyone voted for usurping Greenland, having Canada as a 51st state or Trump’s fantasy of making what McGovern called “Gaza-lago or whatever,” referring to Trump’s remarks that he’s turn Gaza into a world class tourist space.

“It’s nice to be nice, but not too nice — sometimes it needs to be a punch back,” he said.

Funding cuts

If the Republicans pass a budget bill recently proposed by the House’s Budget Committee, McGovern said the country should gear up to be in a scene reminiscent of “A Tale of Two Cities,” referring to the classic novel by Charles Dickens that juxtaposes the opulence of chocolate-loving high society with a lower class so poor they cupped their hands and drank off the cobblestones when a barrel of wine had fallen in the street.

“Its an unbelievably cruel document (the budget proposal) ... and it basically cuts everything that everybody here thinks is important,” he said when asked about it by Joannah Whitney of Greenfield.

“So if you’re an activist within the disability community, there are cuts there ... There’s $230 billion cuts in the SNAP program. If you care about the environment, they’re cutting the environmental protection program,” McGovern said. “You know, they basically want to eliminate the (U.S.) Department of Education. They want to cut all your humanitarian aid feeding hungry people from around the world, the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development).”

Overall, he said, the bill “is an opportunity for everybody to come together with one voice and say, enough.”

McGovern said that “people think foreign aid is like 25%” of the federal budget, but informed the room that it’s less than 1%. He called on the farmers present to fight the cuts to USAID.

Veteran Michael Palmer asked McGovern, “The majority of veterans voted for Trump. What are you doing? What is Congress doing?”

McGovern responded by checking Trump’s current track record on veterans, saying that, “There are 1,000 fewer employees of the VA since Trump came in,” which he said will mean longer and more difficult wait times for veterans.

Judy Huang, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, expressed anxiety in light of potential slashes to federal National Institutes of Health funding, which fuels research. McGovern the packed house of the important of research, saying it’s “about economic development,” and gives rise to cutting-edge results that impact everyday Americans.

McGovern also flagged nutrition as a key component in controlling federal spending.

“A lot of the money that results in, you know, an increase in spending and in our debt is health care-related. And there are better ways to control health care costs than asking you to pay more or denying coverage and certain things, and this [nutrition] is one of them ... making sure our kids get good meals in schools can help produce a healthier adult,” he said.

And he would be applauded when he praised the dedication of federal workers currently under threat of being fired or bought out. He said: “The reason why you want an experienced federal workforce, is because you want people who know what the hell they are talking about. You want people with knowledge, right?”

Immigration

In response to a question, McGovern said he believes that Massachusetts should be a sanctuary state.

“I think let’s just be honest about what’s happening,” he told those present, reminding them that sanctuary status makes the state an automatic target for having federal funding blocked. He said he and his party at the state and national level would continue to protect immigrants in other ways.

“You know, at the end of the day we just want people protected,” he said, noting that farmers rely on an immigrant workforce while the country claims to want “the best and brightest, but we’re making that more difficult.”

Maybe the largest applause of the day came when he said that the “majority of rapists and murderers are white men — maybe you should deport them.”

State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, took the stage briefly to voice her fight to continue funding family shelters, which house some of the state’s undocumented population.

“Right now, we’re on track to spend about a billion dollars in family shelter in this fiscal year,” Comerford said. She added that she will continue to support this funding, and next year’s budget will feature another $500 million toward family shelters. She said that’s an exemplary way for state officials to be “humane” and “effective” in sheltering people.

Social media/news

McGovern shared that his regular news sources include local papers, the New York Times and The Washington Post, and that he watches some CNN and MSNBC — so-called legacy media outlets.

But, he said, “A big chunk of this country is getting their information not from the places most of us do, not from newspapers, not from TV, you know, not from radio, but from all these kind of crazy platforms that push conspiracy theories and push all kinds of lies.”

For this reason he told those gathered to “infiltrate” these platforms.

“It’s important we have voices,” he said, adding that he is branching out into platforms that proved to be difference maker for Republicans in 2024.

The congressman is now on X, Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. “I even did my first Instagram live the other day,” he said.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.

This story has been edited to clarify Gov. Maura Healey’s position on whether Massachusetts is a sanctuary state.