Once election results were in on Wednesday, words spoken to me by Richard Goldstone came to mind. He was a South African jurist and champion of the fight against apartheid, and we were at an event in Middlebury, where he observed, almost as an aside, “America is one of the most conservative countries in the world.”
I was taken aback. What about our liberal traditions, our freedoms, our struggles for equality? Are we really as conservative as South Africa or Brazil?
At the Democratic Party’s gathering in South Burlington on Tuesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders showed he understood what Goldstone was talking about. The anxious crowd still didn’t know how the presidential race would turn out, but in his remarks Sanders described what was at stake. We must face “the crisis of oligarchy in America,” he said. He was talking about the way that billionaires pouring money into politics form an oligarchy that prevents the nation from dealing with persistent problems, such as health care, climate change and housing.
An oligarchy occurs when the few rule the many. Sanders’s message has been consistent over the years: public needs are continually thwarted by an alliance of big business and conservative politicians who lavish tax cuts on wealthy taxpayers while underfunding needed services.
President Biden’s term in office has been the most successful since Franklin Roosevelt’s in marshaling federal resources to address looming crises, such as climate change and crumbling infrastructure, as well as achieving greater economic equality through assistance for child care and other income supports.
The oligarchy always wants to reduce its tax burden — that is a given. This year it appears the electorate, still feeling the effects of recent economic struggles, was less concerned about the oligarchy than about the burden of inflation (even if it has been vanquished) and the idea that immigrants are a threat rather than a boon to our economy.
In Vermont, economic pressures, especially those caused by rising property taxes, yielded an anti-incumbent surge that toppled numerous Democratic legislators and the Democratic lieutenant governor.
A mood of apprehension hung over the Democratic officeholders, activists and supporters who gathered at Higher Ground in South Burlington on Tuesday evening. Todd Daloz, an assistant attorney general in Montpelier, said the feeling was like “a piano hanging by a rope over your head.” In the early morning hours on Wednesday, the rope broke.
History happens at the macro level and the micro level. At the macro level, we can chart the changes that have occurred over the past four decades: the rise of conservatism and its neoliberal enablers, which holds that freeing the marketplace from the restraints of government will unleash an economy that will furnish most of our needs. International trade agreements that shifted economic activity to China and elsewhere created efficiencies, but they hollowed out whole regions in the United States. Inequality in America grew to dangerous levels.
Changes at the macro level tend to produce unpredictable results at the micro level. People feel what they feel and see what they see, and no long-view history lesson is going to help them pay the rent.
At the micro level, Vermonters, who are among the most stalwart opponents of Donald Trump, are often bewildered at the willingness of people to look past Trump’s manifold shortcomings to vote for him, even though his policies are bound to widen inequality and trammel their rights.
The dangers of a new Trump term overshadowed everything at the Democratic gathering on Tuesday night. Sen. Philip Baruth of Chittenden County said the first Trump term had left “an indelible stain” on the nation, and he saw the election as a referendum on Trump. Sen. Virginia Lyons of Chittenden County said Trump was “deliberately undermining democracy for his own good.”
Attorney General Charity Clark, speaking to the crowd, said she had already been devising plans in the event of a Trump victory to ensure that he does nothing “unjust, immoral or illegal” to hurt Vermonters. “I will always fight it,” she said.
Later in the evening Baruth acknowledged the party’s losses, even before the presidential result was known, and he told the gathering, “I don’t want to bring you down. I want to stiffen your spines.”
Rep. Becca Balint spoke to the crowd remotely from Brattleboro, delivering impassioned remarks even before the presidential result was known. “This is a moment that requires incredible bravery from all of us … The work is going to be the same no matter who is the president. The pendulum doesn’t swing by itself. We make the pendulum swing.” Balint won her second term to Congress, and she didn’t flinch from the challenges, even given the ominous portents that loomed.
Early in the evening Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas acknowledged the “mix of dread and hope” that people were feeling, and she referred to the “little blue dot on a great big map that is the state of Vermont.”
The dot remained blue even as the political landscape was awash in red. For Republicans in Vermont, celebration was in order as they broke the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman also lost his race to John Rodgers. The pendulum is swinging.
But it is not all happiness among Republicans. Gov. Phil Scott acknowledged that he had voted for Kamala Harris for president, and there are plenty of Republicans in Vermont who find Trump’s character, record and plans to be abhorrent. The margin of victory in Vermont for Harris shows that she had significant backing from Republicans.
At the micro level on Wednesday morning it seemed as if a dark cloud had settled over the state. People were reaching out to friends and family by phone, text and email. There were tears and stoicism and bewilderment. And yet a friend I encountered that morning had some interesting words. We saw each other in Middlebury, and after a hug expressing a necessary and welcome feeling of solidarity, she said, “I’m not afraid.” She didn’t say it with false bravado. She said it with confidence and defiance. We’ve faced stuff before, she was saying. We go on.
Becca Balint, her anguished face beamed onto the big screen at Higher Ground, was saying something similar. “Onward,” she said. “We have work to do.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: David Moats: ‘We have work to do’.