Spoiler alert: It ain’t happening.

The brave patriots of the Burlington Republican Committee scheduled a rally in support of Trump’s jackbooted thugs — and then postponed because, well, it might be too cold outside and they want to arrange police protection in case they’re harassed by counter-protesters.

To be fair, it is supposed to be very cold and they could be vastly outnumbered by their opponents. Still, they seem easily discouraged. Maybe they should hold their rally in Bill Oetjen’s living room, which should be (a) comfortably warm, (b) secure from outsiders, and (c) more than large enough to accommodate the entire city committee.

Good thing the Founders were made of sterner stuff, or we might still be paying taxes to the Crown.

This failed spurt of patriotism wouldn’t be worth commenting on by itself. But a couple of related items raised it to the level of “can’t miss opportunity to point and laugh.”

For starters, this is the first I’d heard of a leadership transition in the BRC. During last year’s party reorg, the committee installed Oetjen as chair. He replaced Christopher-Aaron Felker, who now serves as vice chair. Sadly for the long-gone relevance of Queen City Republicans, it was a case of like replacing like. Both Felker and Oetjen are failed candidates for public office, and both are best known for their rabid anti-trans bigotry. Well, if scheduling and then postponing a pro-ICE rally in Bernie’s backyard won’t return the party to its former glory, I’m sure the anti-trans thing will do the trick.

Second, Oetjen wasn’t the only Burlington Republican promoting the rally (before he canceled it). Behold:

That’s right, Lenore Broughton, reclusive Montgomery Ward heiress (mandatory “reclusive heiress” identifier) and perpetual funder of ultraconservative lost causes. Because of course she’d be involved in this sad little endeavor. I’ve been writing about Broughton since 2012, when she poured more than a million dollars into a one-woman SuperPAC called Vermonters First that tried, and failed, to elect Republican candidates in what turned out to be a wave election for the Democrats. She’s been a persistent backer of anti-abortion organizations; she bankrolled the conservative “news’ site True North Reports (until she pulled the plug and it immediately folded), and she funded something called the Vermont Institute on Human Flourishing, which is an attempt to slap pseudoscientific labels on Evangelical ideology. Plus she’s spent thousands upon thousands on very conservative candidates running in very liberal districts.

But enough about Broughton, and enough about the wet fart of a pro-ICE rally. On to another recent conservative fail, which didn’t quite rise to the blogging level on its own.

Seems a couple of central Vermont ninth graders have been trying to open a Turning Point USA club at their school, only to have eight different teachers reportedly refuse to sponsor the effort. Then the teens announced a Turning Point event on January 9 at the Canadian Club in Barre. The short list of confirmed speakers included Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame and freshman Rep. MIchael Boutin, known in these pages for opposing the display of the Black Lives Matter flag and the sale of an empty Barre building to the owners of Fox Market, the LGBTQ+ haven in East Montpelier.

Boutin had to answer for his involvement in a Seven Days article. Don’t know if anyone has asked Phil Scott’s party chair why he associated himself with Turning Point. Someone really ought to. The two teens themselves were on the speaker list, as was the delightfully-named Renee McEvilly, a field rep for Turning Point USA from upstate New York. And… that was all.

The longer list of “Invited” speakers included Gov. Phil Scott and Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer turned well-compensated anti-trans bigot. What are the odds that either would have made an appearance? Well, the boys postponed the event with a few days’ notice, citing the lack of confirmed speakers. They were talking of another attempt in late February.

Turns out it’s hard to build a movement. You can’t just announce an event and expect prominent people to show up. Nor can you call a rally for late January and expect the weather to cooperate. Nor can you lay a persuasive claim to being staunch Defenders of Liberty if the thought of facing backlash sends you scurrying for the nearest closet. Oetjen has said the Burlington Republicans “must be Vocal and Visible in order to be Viable.” I’d suggest that in order to be Viable, they also need to be committed enough to show up in the cold and face the fact of their own unpopularity. Building a movement isn’t easy, nor should it be.