So “someone who has lived his life” speaks for them, Lyddy says
By Guy Page
The Oct. 2 Vermont Democratic Party press release calling House candidate John Lyddy a “traitor” is an effort to scare voters and suppress free speech, Lyddy said in a Vermont Daily Chronicle interview today.
VDP Executive Director Jim Dandeneau wrote in a widely-circulated press release: “We know the Vermont Republican Party is filthy with insurrectionist sympathizers, but to be actively supporting a traitor like Lyddy should be a bridge too far for Phil Scott’s party.”
Lyddy, of Whitingham in Windham County, said young people he speaks with are terrified to speak out against 2020 election fraud, the Green New Deal and other sacred cows for fear of losing their jobs. So the 67-year-old second hand store volunteer and retired executive and marketing consultant speaks the truth for them.
“What we saw there was an attempt to suppress voter turnout for me, and for others in the state,” Lyddy said. “I think they are spending a good deal of political capital trying to suppress the free speech of voters, because they intend to go back to voters and double down on many of the issues they supported last year. Increases in taxation on fossil fuel, carbon taxes. These are all very hurtful policies that are going to harm the younger people and the elderly.
“When they make accusations that I am a seditionist and a traitor, essentially what they are doing is saying to the voting public is, ‘If you support that candidate, you are too.’”
And Lyddy says they are doing it all over the country, not just here. And it works.
“I speak to a lot of young people. And they are scared. They don’t want to speak out. Because they are scared of a backlash. The only opportunity they have is for someone like me to speak out for them. For someone who has lived his life, not someone who has two children, and they lose their jobs and can’t support their children.”
It’s reprehensible,” Lyddy said. “Vermont, sadly, is singing from the same songbook.”
Lyddy was asked to explain his role in the January 6, 2021 ‘Stop The Steal’ protest on the Mall.
“Sharon (his life partner) and I drove down to Washington. We left at midnight, arrived at 8 AM. Took the metro into the mall.” There they joined a crowd of (already) several hundred thousand people. Lyddy worked in Washington D.C. for 22 years. He remembers the massive May Day rally of 1972 and similar gatherings.
“We were just below the Washington Monument. We spent 2-3 hours there. When the speeches ended, for the most part everyone walked down the mall to the Capitol building. For the most part, people were chanting slogans, like ‘Stop the Steal.’”
Lyddy then saw “a couple of paramilitary groups literally march up to the western side of the Capital building and start to climb over the structures that were erected for the inauguration. More and more people joined in. Then we witnessed a couple of people breaking in through windows.”
Lyddy saw, but did not join, the growing confrontation outside the Capitol between police and some crowd members.
Then the word came out of the building that a woman (Ashli Babbitt) had been killed. That’s when Lyddy told Sharon, “We didn’t come down here for this.” They left immediately.
He sees some positive change coming out of the rally.
“I felt that that trip and that demonstration was going to be historic. And indeed it was. On a number of different levels. It was historic because we angered a number of political organizations, but at the same time the states were put on notice that things had changed.”
As a result, state legislatures took responsibility for secure voting. “What we witnessed were 27 states modifying voter security statutes in order to change how voting was done in their states, to make sure that voting was more secure.”
“They said I was a threat to democracy because I was speaking out for voter security in this state.” Democrats want “to weaken the voting process.”
If voters are intimidated and the voting process is weakened, “what we will see is that the party that is in power, stays in power.” Their policies will harm the country so much that they will have to do things to stay in power that no other party would do. They do not want me in Montpelier to speak out against that.”
“It saddens me deeply to see this type of behavior up in Vermont.”