IF THE gravest threat to democracy is indifference, have some faith in Donald Trump’s America. For the president is not just good at rallying throngs of his own supporters. He is also firing up his critics in a way that offers some echoes of the Tea Party movement that sprang up to oppose Barack Obama in 2009.

Consider the long lines of constituents wrapped around a high school in Virginia Beach on February 20th, sacrificing their time on a public holiday to meet their Republican congressman, Scott Taylor. Undistracted by a mild, golden-hued evening worthy of early summer, almost 1,000 locals waited in line for seats. A minority were conservatives, wearing the Make America Great Again hats that signal Trump-allegiance or carrying signs demanding that Mr Taylor—a 37-year-old former Navy SEAL commando, elected to Congress for the first time last year—should vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. A larger number carried home-made signs that spoke of “resistance” to Mr Trump or demanded that Mr Taylor “Choose our Country over your Party!” Some were old hands at activism, alerted to attend by the local Democratic Party or by Indivisible, an anti-Trump group with chapters nationwide. Others used the Town Hall Project, a new volunteer-run database that logs opportunities to meet elected politicians—after rowdy meetings in places including Utah and California, some skittish members of Congress declined to hold public events in the recess that began on January 17th, or held virtual “tele-townhalls” instead.

As was the case with many Tea Party groups eight years ago, the crowd at Kempsville High School was older, whiter and more affluent than the national average. A forensic scientist queuing to see Mr Taylor held a placard opposing a wall on the Mexican border with the (tongue-in-cheek) slogan: “How Will We Get Avocados?” As in 2009, some concerned citizens noted that this was their first time at a political meeting, and expressed fears that a tyrannical president is about to wreck the country.

Back in Mr Obama’s first term, Tea Party types fretted that government-run health care amounted to European-style socialism. Some muttered that the first black president might be a secret Muslim. In 2017 Trump-sceptic citizens in Virginia Beach voiced four broad worries. First, they questioned Republican promises to repeal and replace Obamacare as soon as possible, expressing special concern for people with pre-existing medical conditions, who have a right to buy insurance cover under the ACA, while paying not much more than healthy folk. A local man with a serious illness told Mr Taylor: “Without the ACA I wouldn’t be alive.” Second, they wanted their new congressman to back an independent investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election, and to demand that Mr Trump release his tax returns. Third, as residents of a coastal district, they sought assurances that Mr Taylor takes climate change and the threat of rising sea levels seriously—unlike Mr Trump, who stood accused of being anti-science. Finally, a striking number of the 700 people filling the auditorium (a further 200 waited outside) queried the cost of providing Secret Service protection each time Mr Trump spends the weekend at his Florida estate, or for the president’s grown sons when they go on business trips, for instance to open a golf club in Dubai—a “disgusting” expense, one constituent said.

As in 2009, forceful complaints have an impact on politicians. Mr Taylor is a fairly conventional small-government Republican who won his heavily military district by 23 percentage points. But the president won the district by only three points—in part, thinks Mr Taylor, because Candidate Trump dismayed locals by lashing out at the parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Afghanistan, after they rebuked him for anti-Islamic bigotry. Mr Taylor stressed moments where he has bucked his party, for instance in voting for gay rights. He emphasised his co-sponsorship of a bill to ensure that those with pre-existing conditions must be offered insurance (though his bill does not say how to make such cover affordable). He backed a bipartisan Senate probe into Russian election-meddling and called on Mr Trump to release his tax returns. He said he disagrees with Stephen Bannon, the president’s chief political aide, having a principal’s seat on the National Security Council. He condemned talk of Muslim travel bans as “unconstitutional”, though he defended Mr Trump’s right to order extra vetting for arrivals from terror-prone countries. He fudged the question of whether humans are to blame for climate change.

Herbal tea

There are also differences from 2009. In their heyday, Tea Party activists ringingly promised to take their country back, certain that America is a majority-conservative country. Jump eight years, and—at least in Republican-leaning Virginia Beach—demonstrators sounded more anxious, even defensive. They talked of preserving as much of Obamacare as they could, and of stiffening their congressman’s spine to serve as a check on Mr Trump. Aware that the president has called critics “paid protesters” and “so-called angry crowds”, they brought voting cards showing their local addresses and wore stickers bearing their postal zip codes. “We weren’t bused in,” a woman assured Lexington.

Those precautions reflect an alarming change since 2009: a collapse in belief that there is a single, shared version of the truth. Too often, today’s political opponents do not just disagree, they express disbelief. “There’s room for nuance,” Mr Taylor pleaded at one point, defending his view that environmental regulations are necessary but can go too far. A woman silently held up a sign reading “Not True”. A bloc of Trump voters, who had taken the president’s description of the press as “the enemy” to heart, yelled “Bullshit!” or “Fake news!” when he was criticised. A dismayingly plausible scenario involves Mr Trump’s election tearing the country further apart. Still, the deadliest foe of democracy is sullen, despairing apathy. Celebrate dissent.