Political expert weighs in on recent chaos at New Jersey town council meetings

Did you get a job yet, Dana? Are you still living in the basement at home? From personal insults to calls for resignations over data centers. You guys are getting over your heads. Step down. To costumed characters like Cranford's infamous Bong Holio, live streamed council meetings are becoming the new must-see TV. Our civility is gone. Mike Rasmussen is a professor of politics at Rider University. It's a feeling that nobody really wants to hear it. Nobody really wants to listen. We're all dug in. Those feelings on sensitive subjects, like changing demographics to data centers and affordable housing, lead to chaos when the public believes they're not being heard. He just threatened me! That's on video! Whatever is happening in that clip is going to get far more attention than anything that the mayor says or writes or that the council passes a resolution. Rasmussen says elected leaders need to lead when confronted by an angry public, not lash back. If you don't think you can do those things, maybe you shouldn't be in public office. Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe that's not the job for you. If you didn't feel bad about directly contributing to a genocide, abusing your own residents' trust to make money off of them, then you probably won't care about a missing person. An appeal from this young man to the Jackson Council to find his best friend, Morty Wartman, brought in unrelated world matters. I'm in the middle of a meeting. And ended with him surrounded by law enforcement at the dais. When it comes to public comment, Rasmussen says, You should probably think about wanting to make it count. You should probably think about what you want to convey, what you want to communicate, what you want to accomplish. Rasmussen believes when the public sees their council meetings devolve into this, it does little to make them want to speak up or even attend. Do you think you'll ever attend a meeting? No. No. Like I said, I don't want to get caught up in it. Jim Murdoch, News 12.