Now we know exactly how sincere Hank Poitras was in his non-apology for his racist, misogynistic online history. Because what you see above is the chair of the Windham County Republican Committee cackling and sniggering his way through an OnlyFans video depicting a sex act, which he gleefully shared on his YouTube channel in an effort to defeat a candidate for school board in Chester.
Shared, need I add, in apparent violation of OnlyFans’ Acceptable Use Policy.
This story was reported by The Chester Telegraph’s Cynthia Prairie, and no one comes out of it looking good. But the main point for my purposes is, should Hank Poitras occupy a position of influence in the Vermont Republican Party? I cannot see how party chair Paul Dame or Gov. Phil Scott can possibly tolerate his presence.
The details, outlined as briefly as possible because of the very high Ick Factor:
Dearie me. I seem to have triggered a bit of a firestorm in Vermont political circles with last week’s piece about Hank Poitras, the foul-mouthed videographer, podcaster, and (shamefully) chair of the Windham County Republican Committee. (I’d referred to him as chair of the Brattleboro party committee, per The Brattleboro Reformer, but apparently he’s a bigger fish than that.) Poitras is pictured here in one of his own videos, thrusting middle fingers skyward and shouting “Fuck all you liberal motherfuckers!” just like a good Phil Scott Republican. (I think that’s how the governor kicks off his weekly press conferences, but I could be mistaken.)
My post, which featured some of Poitras’ more loathsome on-the-record comments, caused consternation in VTGOP circles and prompted Vermont Public’s Peter Hirschfeld and Lola Duffort (wow, team effort) to produce a very good piece about The Artist Who Styles Himself As “Planet Hank.”
Poitras was scheduled to share a stage with VTGOP chair Paul Dame and Barre Republican Rep. Michael Boutin last Friday evening. After media inquiries, Boutin sought to remove Poitras from the program and then withdraw from the event before changing his mind following “prayer and counsel,” according to Boutin’s Facebook page, where you can watch his brief address to the smallish crowd.
It also seems to have scared Dame away from a personal appearance. He begged off at a very late stage, citing “unexpected family obligations,” and sent along a video message instead. Probably had to walk the dog or summat.
I have to tell you, this is one of the proudest moments of my decade-plus as a Vermont Political Observer.
Warning: This post contains quite a lot of bad, offensive language. It all comes from the subject of the post. I feel that it must be presented in unexpurgated form because it illustrates the mindset of the subject. The worst of the language will be in quote boxes and preceded by trigger warnings.
Hey everybody, get a load of Hank Poitras, d/b/a Planet Hank, video artiste and right-wing provocateur who is scheduled to share a platform on Friday with state Rep. Michael Boutin of Barre and Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame.
And I’m here to tell you that Vermont Republicans would be well advised to sever all ties with Poitras because he is provably a “misogynistic, narcissistic sociopath,” in the words of New Hampshire progressive videographer “Kyle from the Shire.” That characterization is fully warranted, given the flood of online content produced by Poitras himself. It includes plenty of racist, misogynistic, and hateful material, the kind of stuff that makes disgraced former senator Sam Douglass look like Mr. Rogers by comparison.
Oh, and he also has a criminal record from his time living in New Hampshire.
Best strap yourselves in, folks, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Complete with trigger warnings.
Oh hey, remember the two ninth-graders who wanted to form a chapter of Turning Point USA at their high school? The ones who had to hastily cancel a January event at the Canadian Club in Barre?
Well, they’re back. Yep, gonna give it another try on February 20. Maybe someday they’ll learn to schedule events far enough in advance to rustle up a crowd.
Interesting that Turning Point USA appears nowhere on the meeting’s publicity materials. It’s now billed as “Club America,” which, you’ll be shocked to learn, is a TPUSA joint aimed at the high school crowd. Perhaps they realized that the name “Turning Point USA” is itself a red flag a-waving.
The boys have reined in their expectations regarding speakers. They’ve dropped the “Invited” list that (laughably) included Gov. Phil Scott and professional anti-trans activist Riley Gaines. Two of the confirmed speakers from January are back on the agenda: State Rep. Michael Boutin of Barre, a first-term lawmaker with some decidedly outré views, and Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame.
Which once again begs the question, why is the head of Phil Scott’s party choosing to associate with a couple of dipshit kids who want to bring ultraconservative extremism to Vermont? Somebody should ask him, and should ask the governor what he thinks of Dame’s complicity.
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.
Congratulations, I guess? to Paul Dame for his re-election as Vermont Republican Party chair. He overcame a challenge by state Sen. Russ Ingalls in a 50-47 vote at the party’s convention on Saturday.
The margin does not speak of a rousing endorsement for a two-term incumbent. Quite the opposite, in fact. Dame has been in office since 2021, and almost half of the VTGOP’s ruling class wanted him gone? That’s not a positive indicator for Dame’s third term or for the party itself.
Completely absent from the convention, and from the Dame v. Ingalls campaign as a whole, was Gov. Phil Scott. It was a return to his pre-2024 abstention from the Republican political scene, which doesn’t bode well for the party or Dame as we enter a 2026 campaign season likely to be dominated by anti-Trump backlash.
Did the party make the right call? No idea. Ingalls was correct in pointing out that Dame has failed to improve the VTGOP’s dire financial situation, but would the senator have done any better? We’ll never know.
Hey, time for an update on the races for state party chairs! Feel the excitement!
The Vermont Democratic and Republican parties are electing chairs this month. Both races are contested, but that’s where the similarities end. The Democrats are conducting a polite, restrained kind of election, while the Republicans seem to be borrowing heavily from Lord of the Flies.
We’ll do the Republicans first because (a) it’s a lot more entertaining and (b) their election comes first. The VTGOP’s convention is this Saturday the 8th, while the Democrats convene the following Saturday.
Since last I wrote about these contests, incumbent VTGOP Chair Paul Dame has been on one. He’s been campaigning at a furious pace and, ignoring Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, chastising those who dare support the other candidate, state Sen. Russ Ingalls, who hasn’t been shy about firing back.
Next month could bring leadership changes in both of Vermont’s major parties. On the Republican side, November’s election for party chair has produced a spirited contest. The incumbent faces a challenge from a prominent elected official and seems to be in some trouble with party brass.
More on that in a moment, but first, we’ve got breaking news from the Vermont Democratic Party. Jim Ramsey, who was chosen as interim chair last winter following the sudden departure of David Glidden, will not seek election to a full two-year term. When he succeeded Glidden in February, Ramsey delivered stirring remarks to the VDP state committee, castigating Gov. Phil Scott’s “harmful policies,” calling for the party to field “a competitive candidate” to run for governor in 2026, and concluding “Let’s go to work, and let’s win.”
Well, if any of that comes to pass, Ramsey won’t be around to see it. Here’s how he explained his decision in an email to this observer:
Over the course of the past few months, my work commitments outside of the VDP have been increasing, and much of it is occurring away from Vermont, particularly in Washington, DC. This is expected to continue at least through 2026 and into 2027. As a result, my wife and I will soon be moving there on a full-time basis, and my role as VDP Chair will end when my term expires next month.
Not great news for the party, which has struggled for years to find good leaders and keep them in place. There’s been a lot of turnover in the unpaid position of party chair and the paid staff position of executive director. Now they’ll be breaking in a new chair with the 2026 campaign season just around the corner.
When Ramsey was chosen as interim chair, there was another hopeful in the running: former state senator turned podcaster Andy Julow. Would he be interested in another run? Magic 8-Ball says “Ask Again Later.”
Thankfully, the tide appears to be ebbing on the Great Statehouse Trans PANIC! of 2025. It’s been days since the Vermont Daily Chronicle could gin up any fresh angles on the ridiculous story. Which, as a reminder, featured a group of Christian conservatives whining — inaccurately — that their free speech rights had been trampled by a handful of trans folk dancing around a Statehouse meeting room. As we previously noted, there is no First Amendment right to deliver speech in a given location or on a given medium.
But before we consign this fiasco to the dustbin of history, we should take note of two particularly ridiculous attempts to exploit this mildest of contretemps. First, a tiny extremist “parental rights” group unwittingly exposing the absurdity of its own claims. And second, the head of the Vermont Republican Party claiming that state lawmakers have a solemn duty to maintain a perfect attendance record.
This will involve a bit of exposure to the rantings of SPEAKVT, a group of far-right rabble-rousers in the Essex-Westford school district. The group’s president Marie Tiemann put out a statement about the March 12 “detransitioning” event sponsored by SPEAKVT and the Vermont Family Alliance. Funny thing, her statement is kind of a self-own.
You know the funny thing about all those conservatives who carry pocket Constitutions everywhere they go, many of whom revere our founding document as divinely inspired?
The funny thing is, they have no idea what the First Amendment says or means. Are those pocket Constitutions ever actually read, or are they just fetish objects?
Latest example: The ongoing kerfuffle over a March 12 incident at the Statehouse, in which an event sponsored by the far-right Vermont Family Alliance was interrupted by a handful of dancing transgender folk. (To judge by available footage, it was the mildest, most unthreatening “disruption” I have ever seen in my life.) Eventually the meeting was shut down by the Sergeant at Arms. Conservatives instantly went into full tizzy mode over the trans folk’s alleged interference with VFA’s First Amendment rights.
I haven’t addressed this before because I thought it would go away (as it should), but the right-wing echo machine has cranked itself up to eleven. So I guess I have to explain this. Slowly.
The First Amendment guarantees your right of free speech. It does not guarantee your right to a particular platform. There is no Constitutional right to hold an event in Room 11 of the Statehouse, just as there is no Constitutional right to express your views in the pages of the New York Times or on a given social media platform or on a specific streetcorner or in a crowded theater.
The VFA folks could have gone out in the hall or out on the front lawn. Or anywhere. They didn’t have to be deterred by a few counter-protesters dancing around. Which, from available video evidence, is absolutely all they did.
The Vermont Political Observer. 