I have to admit, I missed it at first glace. I was scanning the Secretary of State’s list of candidates for the Legislature, and my eyes just glossed right over a familiar name. To be fair, I was focused on Republican candidates and this guy has qualified for the August Democratic primary in the Windham-1 district.

Fair warning: He is not a Democrat. Not anywhere close.

This is Jason Herron, previously noted in this space as a stealth conservative — at the time, he was a candidate for Guilford Selectboard touting himself as a humble maple farmer who merely wanted more transparency in local government.

In reality, he is (as you see in the screenshot above) the Vermont state director for Convention of States Action, a far-right fantasy camp that wants to selectively rewrite the U.S. Constitution. The object of its desire: a Constitutional convention “restricted to proposing amendments that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.”

Yeah, none of that pesky reproductive rights stuff or clarifying the Second Amendment or eliminating the Electoral College or clarifying the separation of church and state. Only approved topics will be allowed in this arena of free speech.

In an appearance on a COSA YouTube video, Herron said a Constitutional convention held on COSA terms is “the only way we’re going to save our country without shedding blood.”

Good to know he’s keeping a level head about all this.

Herron has a terrifically deceptive ad on page A6 of the June 5 issue (downloadable here) of The Commons, a weekly newspaper based in Brattleboro. He spends most of the text-heavy ad bemoaning political divisiveness in America without assigning particular blame to either side. He then turns to environmental concerns in language that may appear thoroughly progressive at first glance, but he uses the phraseology of “Farmer” John Klar’s Agripublican movement. (There is, for instance, no mention whatsoever of climate change.) The only obvious “tell” that Herron is a right-winger is his reflexive use of “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” as the adjectival form of the party’s name.

But that’s a subtle thing, and you couldn’t be criticized for missing it. That’s what makes the ad so misleading. Because Herron is still the top guy in COSA’s tiny Vermont operation, and that’s what the voters need to know.

Herron is seen in the COSA video wearing a T-shirt straight from the COSA store. The shirt, currently offered at a 10% discount, says “We the People DECIDE” on the front and bears the COSA remix of the American flag (the stars are replaced by the letters COS) on the sleeves. What is it about these people who allegedly believe the flag is a sacred symbol of our republic but are constantly fucking around with the design in ways that could fairly be seen as desecration? For that matter, what is it about these people who think the Constitution was divinely ordained but, at the same time, is badly in need of a selective overhaul?

In the video, Herron describes his political radicalization, err, I’m sure he would say “awakening,” taking place while driving his tractor and listening to COSA audio content by the likes of David Barton, disgraced Christian “historian” who believes that AIDS was God’s punishment on Teh Gayz and America should be a Christian theocracy, and whose book about The Big Lie of Church/State Separation was withdrawn by its Christian publisher due to numerous factual errors.

Herron goes on in the video to recount the experience that apparently spurred his Democratic rebranding. He and his merry band of True Believers ran a candidate in the 2022 election… who lost terribly. He doesn’t name the candidate but it looks to be Nancy Gassett, defeated by incumbent Democrat Sara Coffey by a robust 31 percentage points. Gassett is, not for nothing, running again as a Republican. (She is also a member of the VTGOP state committee, which is a fair indication of the state of the Windham County Republicans.)

Herron blames Gassett’s faceplant, not on her radical ideas, but on a corrupt election system that mails ballots around willy-nilly and processes them “through Dominion voting machines.”

Yeah, that old canard. The one that cost Fox News close to $800 million.

He also complains of the derangement suffered by you and me and all them Vermonters who vote lib’rul. “Reason is kind of out the window in Vermont,” he said. “There are people, if they hear the word ‘Republican’ or ‘Conservative,’ they get a feeling of hatred. There’s no amount of reason that can overcome them when it comes to that.”

Herron’s takeaway: “I believe you’re fighting a losing battle in Vermont just by putting yourself out there as a Republican candidate.”

And hey presto, an astroturf Democrat is born.

Coffey is not seeking re-election. The real Democrat in the race, the one endorsed by Coffey, is Zon Eastes, chair of the Guilford Selectboard and, among other things, music director of the Brattleboro-based Juno Orchestra. Eastes would seem to have considerable advantages over Herron, but only if the voters of Windhan-1 are aware of the candidates’ backgrounds and beliefs. Herron is doing his best to ensure that his radicalism flies under the radar.

To put it another way, he is lying to the voters of Windham-1.