Category Archives: Vermont Republican Party

LIe Down With Dogs…

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Ah, what a happy group of Republicans! There’s Gov. Phil Scott, Lite-Gov candidate Sen. Joe Benning, and U.S. Senate candidate Gerald Malloy. I can’t identify all of the other people, but I know quite a few.

Next to the governor is state Sen. Russ Ingalls, almost certainly the most conservative person in the Senate. The people in the back row behind Benning are House candidates Lloyd and Lynn Dike, state Rep. (and VTGOP vice chair) Samantha Lefebvre, and House candidate Joe Gervais. Front row, yellow shirt, state Senate candidate and far-right rabble-rouser John Klar, who posted the picture on his Facebook page. The three on the right are three House candidates: Rob North, James McClay, and Jon Christiano. (North is the subject of an upcoming “steath conservative” post.)

That’s a whole bunch of extremists in the company of Smilin’ Phil.

I previously wrote that the extremists have taken over the Vermont Republican Party. They’re in party leadership, they’re on the state and county committees, and they constitute a goodly share of the Republican ticket.

Until now, Scott has kept his distance. Not any more. He has made common cause with the nutbars. Phil Scott owns this Republican Party and should be made to answer for every one of the people in this photograph.

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Stealth Conservatives: Welcome to Dog Whistle Farm

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This is Allison Duquette, farmer, personal trainer, candidate for Vermont House in the Chittenden-25 district, and ardent deployer of dog whistles.

Duquette goes to great lengths to present herself as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican. Trouble is, she’s just not very good at it. Her brand of dog whistle is so poorly constructed it can actually be heard by human ears.

Chittenden-25 includes Westford and an eastern chunk of Milton. Duquette’s Democratic opponent is Julia Andrews. This is a newly-reapportioned district; Westford used to be in Chittenden 8-3 and has been represented by the very conservative Bob Bancroft.

Duquette and Andrews appeared at an online candidate forum in late September, which can be viewed on Lake Champlain Access Television. Her answers usually started off acceptably moderate before veering right off the cliff. Details to come, but first a note about her Facebook page.

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Stealth Conservatives: Graphene, 9/11, and the Mystery of the Eighth of the Month

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Fasten your seat belts. This is gonna be a bumpy ride.

Meet Stephen Bellows, former Republican candidate for governor (he got 5,402 people to vote for him in the primary) and current Republican candidate for Senate in the Grand Isle district. He’s got no hope of beating perpetual incumbent Dick Mazza, but his views are so extreme that you’d think the Vermont Republican Party would formally disavow him. Guess not.

His gubernatorial campaign website (he doesn’t seem to have one for his Senate bid) contains the usual bland-ish talking points: Back to basics in education, cut government regulation, decrease the property tax burden (especially for seniors), tax breaks for military vets, anti-Global Warming Solutions Act, anti-abortion, pro-Second Amendment. Garden variety conservative Republican, right?

Wrong! Oh, so completely and delightfully wrong.

He really let his freak flag fly in an interview on “Sound Off!”, Linda Kirker’s community access TV show. Kirker is a former candidate for the House and a die-hard Trumper who believes that The Big Orange is the only thing standing between us and the globalist/Socialist plot to destroy America. In this company, Bellows may have let down his guard. He certainly didn’t hide the nature of his views.

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Stealth Republicans: Pin That Extremist to the Wall

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We can end the competition for Best Moment in a Political Debate in 2022. We already have a winner!

The honorees are state Reps. Kathleen James and Seth Bongartz of Manchester, whose star turn came in an October 12 candidates’ debate on Vermont’s best community access TV service, gnat-tv. The forum featured the three candidates in the two-seat Bennington-4 district. Pictured from right to left (in the photographic sense only): James, Bongartz, gnat-tv moderator Andrew McKeever, and Republican candidate Joe Gervais, seen here desperately wishing he was somewhere else.

Gervais is a Covid denialist, vaccine truther, and 2020 election conspiratorialist among other things. Oh, and he sees the hand of God in random cloud formations.

Throughout the debate, he did his best to conceal his extreme views behind the usual façade of run-of-the-mill Republicanism. But near the end (just before the 49-minute mark in the one-hour program), James calmly rolled out a devastating attack.

When you and I met for the first time on primary night, outside the Arlington polls, you told me you believed that Trump had won the 2020 election and that basically it had been stolen by massive national voter fraud, and that was disturbing to me… And I’ve gotten a call from a constituent who said that you told her that you were at the Capitol on January 6th, the day of the insurrection. And you’re campaigning on honesty and transparency, and I want to know if you were in Washington DC at our nation’s capital on the day that a violent mob attacked it

Ouch!

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Stealth Conservatives: Election Truther Gets a Leg Up From Phil Scott

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Say hello to Seth Adam Manley, Republican candidate for House in the Chittenden-22 district. Mr. Manley believes the oft-debunked claim that voting machines can be hacked, says global warming is just part of the natural cycles of the planet’s climate, thinks Ron Santis’ transport of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was an act of compassion, believes that crime has skyrocketed because we defunded the police, opposes abortion rights and whatever he thinks critical race theory is, and refers to transgender women as “biological males who identify as female.”

Oh, and he was appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to the Essex Junction Board of Civil Authority, which oversees elections.

Yep. Mr. Moderate picked an election truther to a body responsible for elections.

Scott also appointed former VTGOP chair Deb Billado, a hardcore Trumper, and election truther Brian Christie to the same board.

This summer, Scott had to appoint justices of the peace for Essex Junction after it became a city this year. His nominees will serve until city voters elect Justices of the Peace in November. But they’ve already kicked up a fuss or two at BCA meetings.

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Stealth Conservatives: Trump Was Anointed By God to Save America

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Ah, the last dying embers of Republican power in Vermont. Jim Douglas and Brian Dubie. Those were the days, eh?

Now, who’s that nice little old lady between them? That would be Maryse Dunbar, Essex resident and two-time candidate for the House. Lovely, right? Nice of Brian and Jim to lend her a hand.

She’s also gotten a big assist from VTGOP chair Paul Dame, who sent an email blast soliciting support for Dunbar. Cool. I assume he’s fully informed about Dunbar’s political views, and they must be consistent with his vision of Republicanism.

Now let’s take a look at Dunbar’s Facebook page and… oh dear.

Yep, that’s Our Lord and Savior guiding the hand of God’s Chosen One, Donald J. Trump. Funny thing, this is not an outlier on Dunbar’s Facebook page, a melange of conspiracy theories, Christian nationalism, and Covid denialism of the rankest sort.

In other words, she’s just another Vermont Republican candidate in the year 2022.

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Like It Or Not, This Is Your VTGOP

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Taking a pause from my ongoing series about stealth conservatives and other extremists who litter the Vermont Republican Party’s ticket this year, to note that these people can’t be classed as the exception. They are the norm. It’s Phil Scott who’s the exception. The party he once knew and loved is no longer with us and it ain’t coming back.

For example, take the above photograph and focus on the four centermost figures. The fellow with the bright red bowtie is Samuel Douglass, stealth conservative candidate previously uncovered in this space as a guy who thinks Fox News isn’t conservative enough. The gent to his right is the Patron Saint of Plausibly Moderate Republicanism, Jim Douglas. Behind Douglas is VTGOP chair Paul Dame. To Douglas’ right is state Rep. Samantha Lefebvre, one of 2020’s successful crop of stealth candidates.

Oh, and she’s now the vice chair of the Vermont Republican Party.

Yeah, I missed the memo. The VTGOP website includes no information about party officials, presumably to avoid embarrassing any of them. But the original caption to this photo identified her as vice chair.

It’s another sad step toward the outer boundaries of political sensibility for the once-dominant party. Its top positions are held by extremists of various kinds, and its slate of candidates is lousy with election truthers, QAnon adherents, Covid deniers and hard-core Trumpers. And maybe the odd militia type. Not to mention the virulently anti-trans chair of the biggest city party in the state.

Ladies, gentlemen and others, this is your VTGOP. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

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Stealth Conservatives: This Guy Might Actually Be Dangerous

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Submitted for your consideration: Jarrod Sammis, Republican candidate for House in the Rutland-3 district and assiduous scrubber of his past social media activity.

There’s good reason for that. Said activity includes a nice helping of far-right ideology and stuff about guns. Lots and lots and lots of guns. Also, hints of militia leanings.

Until reapportionment, Rutland-3 was a two-person district including Castleton, Fair Haven, Hubbardton and West Haven. It was solidly Republican; its representatives are Bob Helm and Bill Canfield, who rarely drew Democratic opposition of any sort. “Rutland-3” is one-seat Castleton now; the other three towns are in other districts. Helm is retiring; Canfield is running in another district.

Since he won the primary in August, Sammis has been a busy bee. He’s appeared at many campaign events with many fellow Republicans including, um:

In future, I’d advise Governor Nice GuyTM to check credentials before letting himself be photographed with a candidate who (being charitable here) he’s never heard of before. It might come back to bite him in the plausibly moderate ass.

Sammis is opposed by Democrat Mary Droege, a credible candidate. But Rutland-3 looks to be Republican territory, which means Mr. Sammis may well be showing up in Montpelier in January. Here’s what he’d bring to the table.

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Stealth Conservatives: With a Little Help From the Press

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Today’s edition of Stealth Conservatives features two Kindly Old Grandpas, or so their newspaper profiles might lead you to think. On the left, in the photographic sense only, is John Lyddy, the previously discussed election truther running for House. On the right, in every possible sense, is Peter Caldwell, Republican candidate in the solid blue Middlebury House district.

Both received the benefit of kid-gloves treatment in their local newspapers. These candidate profile pieces are often cranked out in a hurry, out of a sense of obligation rather than due diligence. But in a day when many Republicans are purposefully concealing their ultraconservative views, our political media need to do better.

In July, the Brattleboro Reformer published an extremely friendly profile of Lyddy, who has repeatedly exposed his extreme views on social media. The uncritical piece depicted Lyddy as a goodhearted retiree who simply wants to serve his community. And it completely ignores his attendance at the January 6 insurrection (and insistence that the Democrats stole the 2020 election), his veiled threats against elected officials and government agencies, and his advocacy for “a brief correction by civil war” to remove Democrats from office.

Yeah, just a brief civil war.

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When Political Journalism Collapses In On Itself

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The folks at VTDigger, home of The Best Political Journalists In the State, Bar None*, do a lot of good work. But once in a while, they step on a rake.

*As described by Managing Editor Paul Heintz at last week’s gubernatorial debate. Which begs the question, how many political reporters do we have, actually?

The latest Digger digger concerns extremist Republican candidate John Lyddy, who’s running in the Windham-6 district currently represented by retiring Democrat John Gannon. Lyddy is an election truther and self-described January 6 insurrectionist who was outed by the Vermont Democratic Party in a Sunday press release. Digger picked up the release and did the absolute minimum with it.

The real story here is that the Vermont Republican Party welcomes the likes of Lyddy with open arms. In fact, its legislative ticket is loaded with hard-core Trumpers, bigots, and Covid deniers. An organ with the Best Political Reporters Etc. might be expected to go out and get that story — seek out and identify all the extremists on the VTGOP ticket and ask what it indicates about the character and direction of the party and its legislative caucuses. Seems like the “moderates” are being weeded out and replaced with people in the Art Peterson mold.

But Digger didn’t do any of that. Instead, the story was framed as your standard political “he said, he said” story:

Vermont Democratic Party targets GOP over House candidate’s Jan. 6 involvement

See, the real story isn’t that the VTGOP’s door is wide open to the John Lyddys of the world. No, it’s that the Democrats are attacking the VTGOP.

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