So. Prominent Chittenden County Landlord Stiffs Tenant. A story we’ve definitely heard before. But never with a twist like this one.

The landlord: Jason Jacob Hinsdale, scion of the family development/property management firm. The tenant: Scrappy BIPOC-owned Little Morocco Café. The situation: Hinsdale has imposed a 150% 250% rent increase effective in August an increase he himself admits the market doesn’t justify.

The twist: Hinsdale’s wife, small-P progressive stalwart Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, one of Vermont’s handful of BIPOC electeds.

It will be interesting to see how both of them play this out. Hinsdale’s move isn’t unusual for a landlord in a red-hot market but it could be political poison for Ram Hinsdale. She figures to face embarrassing questions about her husband’s power play, and he figures to come under pressure to get his loyal spouse out of this dilemma by not kicking Little Morocco to the curb.

This is the three-dimensional realization of the conflict expressed in the above image: Ram Hinsdale trying to position herself as the progressive in the 2022 Democratic Congressional primary while speaking from the shiny, spotless, open concept kitchen of the suburban manse she now occupies.

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