Tag Archives: Mark Coester

The Rich Scent of Astroturf Descends Upon Our Verdant Landscape

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This, my friends, is what you get when you ask Canva’s AI illustration tool to render “Vermont landscape.” And it’s a great example of the stuff you see when you visit websites or social media feeds for conservative candidates or causes.There’s a lot of AI usage; there are also things like tech bros defending rural Vermont and sudden-onset farmers with possibly inoperative staycation programs. In short, there’s a hell of a lot of astroturf in the conservative ideosphere.

These groups and individuals allegedly believe that rural Vermont is a precious resource, central to our very identity, and the people who live there are the true, authentic Vermonters, not those miserable lefty masses huddled in our “urban” communities. And yet these people present themselves with an inauthentic feel that makes you wonder what the hell is going on.

With AI maybe it’s a rights issue, not wanting to pay for copyrighted photography. Or maybe it’s just too haaaaaaaaard to do a DuckDuckGo image search. Or possibly, spitballin’ here, these color-saturated simulacra reveal something about the fakeness of the message itself. Because the Golden Age of the “real Vermont” — you know, the time before the unkempt flatlander rabble of hippies and Bernie Sanders fans descended upon the Green Mountain State — never actually existed.

So, when Sen. Russ Ingalls’ The Vermont Party posts a(n AI image of a) lapel pin saying “Make Vermont Vermont Again,” what year or time period does he have in mind?

I’m guessing it’s before the construction of the interstate freeway system, the development ranked by longtime journalist Chris Graff as the most consequential in recent Vermont history*. Before the freeways came, Vermont was a sleepy backwater that was difficult to navigate, so hardly anybody bothered to try. The freeways made our state much more accessible, enabling the arrival of those damn hippies and progressive types who eventually staged a hostile takeover of Vermont’s social order. (Never forget, Romain Tenney died for your sins.)

*Census data confirms Graff’s hypothesis. Our population grew extremely slowly from 1900 to 1960. The freeways triggered three decades of double-digit growth, sending our population from 360,000 to 563,000.

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We’re About to Get a Good Read on How Crazy the Vermont Republican Party Is

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Sad to say, but we’ve arrived at the point where Scary Eagle Man is the only sensible choice.

That’s because Gerald Malloy is running for the Republican Congressional nomination against hyper-manly-man Mark Coester, seen here in an AI-generated video purportedly wagging his finger in U.S. Rep. Becca Balint’s face. I’d dare him to try that in real life. He’d find out just how scrappy that little dyke can be.

And if the Republican primary electorate chooses Coester over Malloy, then we’ll know for sure that Gov. Phil Scott’s version of Republicanism is well and truly dead. Because if there was any doubt about whether Coester is a certified far-right whack job [Narrator: “There wasn’t“], he removed it in one brief conversation with Seven Days’ Kevin McCallum.

In said conversation, he addressed McCallum as a “libtard fuck,” and later added this gem: “These commie fucks in Vermont pass whatever garbage fuckin’ laws they want to. They can do what and they can kiss my ass…”

As a loyal member of the Vermont Commie Fucks Club, let me say I am honored to be a target of Mr. Coester’s spittle-flecked outburst. (Disclosure: I’m just guessing about the spittle, but I think I’m on safe ground.)

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Congratulations to the VTGOP for Finding a Candidate to Run Against Becca Bal — Oh.

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The Vermont Republican Party’s effort to build a strong statewide ticket are proceeding apace. Mark Coester, who has once before been disavowed by the VTGOP, has announced he’s running for Congress. He is, so far, the only Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint.

Coester is seen here in the only video that comes up when you search YouTube for “Mark Coester Vermont.” It’s a 21-second clip of Coester meandering along the U.S.-Mexico border wall, pausing in front of a small section that’s either unfinished or damaged, gesturing at it, and saying “Ran out of concrete?” He’s carrying a big ol’ sidearm, just in case he has to Halt A Incursion or something.

This is kind of normal behavior for Coester, whose campaign website promotes him as a man who would bring “common sense and traditional values to Washington, D.C.” He speaks of government accountability and term limits and 100% Fair and Honest Elections and — my favorite bit — decries “the constant bickering, finger pointing and blame games that go on in politics.”

If you’ve read my coverage of far-right stealth candidates, you’ll recognize the warning signs. This guy is a Trump-lovin’ conspiratorialist.

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A Child’s Treasury of Questions About Gerald Malloy

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Oh hey, who dat?

It’s Gerald Malloy, our very own Republican candidate for Senate, yukkin’ it up with insurrectionist fraudster Steve Bannon!

This is an image from Malloy’s October 17 appearance on Bannon’s “War Room” show, during which Bannon called on his legions of followers to volunteer for, or donate to, Malloy’s campaign.

Hmm… October 17… that date rings a bell… right, right. That was the day federal prosecutors called for Bannon to be locked up for six months for defying a Congressional subpoena.

Well, as old Aesop once said, “A man is known by the company he keeps.”

Speaking of which, do you remember the Mark Coester hullaballoo? The archconservative Senate candidate ‘s logging truck was in Colchester’s Fourth of July Parade, festooned with fascist and alt-right banners.

And Malloy for Senate campaign materials.

“…the company he keeps.”

Malloy has been the Republican nominee for more than two months. For the most part, the media coverage of him has been awfully polite and incurious. (One exception: Kevin McCallum’s deep dive in Seven Days.) This is probably because no one thinks he’s going to win, so why bother going beneath the surface? But still, he is a major party candidate for high office. He ought to get as much scrutiny as any other candidate.

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The Clown Show Goes Into Overtime

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The primary campaign was a rough one for the Vermont Republican Party. While the Democrats had enough good candidates to populate several robust primary contests, the Republicans offered the usual collection of unknowns, kooks and zealots in such low numbers that H. Brooke Paige reprised his ever-popular “run for a bunch of offices” ploy just to prevent Democrats from winning Republican nominations via handfuls of write-in votes.

Well, primary day has come and gone, and somehow things have gotten even worse for the VTGOP. First, we have the usual aftermath of the Paige maneuver: As he has done before, he withdrew from all but one race to allow the party to choose replacement candidates. Second, we have a Republican Congressional nominee who’s treating the nomination like it’s dogshit on the bottom of his shoe.

Back to the Paige situation. The VTGOP now has to scramble to find people willing to fill out the ticket even if they have no chance of winning and will barely even try. These are people who didn’t want to run in the first place. They’ll get a terribly late start on what will surely be underfunded, low-wattage efforts that might bear the slightest of resemblances to real, functional campaigns.

This has become SOP for the VTGOP, but it should be seen as the disgrace that it is. In a system with only two parties competing statewide, this Republican failure is not only bad for the party, it’s bad for democracy.

In addition to that, we have the embarrassment of a top-ticket nominee who wants nothing to do with the VTGOP.

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The VDP Got Its Groove Back

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At the beginning of this year, the Vermont Democratic Party was in bad shape. Constant turnover in leadership and staff, low morale, poor fundraising, ineffectiveness in the face of Phil Scott.

Well, that last one hasn’t changed. Yet.

But the other stuff? Things are looking up. The credit, it would seem, belongs to party Chair Anne Lezak and Executive Director Jim Dandeneau. They’re the new leadership team, and they’ve turned things around in a hurry. The money is flowing, party regulars are engaged, they’ve refilled a bunch of staff vacancies, and their latest press release shows a newfound willingness to get in there and mix it up.

At the dawn of 2022, the party had a single staff member. This week, the VDP announced the hiring of its fifth staffer, Finance Director Shelden Goodwin. She joins Dandeneau, Coordinated Campaign Director Elliot Kauffman, Senate Caucus Director Sally Short, and House Caucus Director Cameron McClimans. They’re geared up for the campaign season.

They’ve been able to assemble a team because, well, they’ve got the money. Major donors and officeholders are doing their part, and the donor lists are getting longer.

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