If one only went by appearances, which one shouldn’t, by the way, Mike Pullen would not show any stereotypical traces of a political activist. There are no Birkenstock sandals, no Lenin goatee, nor anything else that leads one to believe he has started a local resistance movement against Donald Trump and his policies in Talbot County.
And perhaps that is the point. Under this new era of Trumpism, a whole new population of concerned citizens has moved outside their comfort zone to voice their opposition to what they see as an attack on the environment, educational policies, and the country’s global leadership.
The career lawyer, having settled in Easton from New England in 1977, has typically not been in the forefront of any political movement. And yet during the presidential election of 2016, he began to fully understand the negative impact on what he calls,”the forgotten middle class,” and felt compelled to take action.
And that move has turned out to be the formation of Talbot Rising, a non-partisan volunteer organization dedicated to mobilizing public opinion and awareness of what Mike and dozens of other Talbot County residents see as a vicious attack on the environment, healthcare, public education, and traditional American values. They have vowed to create a grassroots movement to convince lawmakers that there is strong opposition to these new and dangerous policies.
In anticipation of Congressman Andy Harris’ first town meeting on the Eastern Shore on Friday, the Spy talked to Mike about Talbot Rising and their mission.
This video is approximately four minutes in length. Congressman Harris will host a town meeting at the Todd Auditorium on the Chesapeake College campus starting at 6pm on March 31st.
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