By Lynn LaFleur
I was driving home from town Saturday speaking to my dad on the phone and an overwhelming feeling of wanting to cry rushed over me. I had to stop talking or it was just going to flow. My stomach was in my throat and I literally couldn’t breathe. What was this all of a sudden? Where did it come from?
I realized I had to do some soul searching to figure out the trigger. Could it be the one hour of constant badgering? Was it the first hand experience of realizing where our country is at? Or was it the two young boys we met on the sidewalk?
I made a decision to attend the “No Kings” rally in town advertised by our Senator, Bernie Sanders. I’m not a fan of Bernie’s. Was this a celebration of defeating the king 249 years ago? A celebration of our hard fought war for freedom on Flag Day? That’s what “No Kings” is, right? After all, we have three branches of government in place to prevent a King from ruling our country. No, this was an anti-Trump rally.
So, here I am at the rally. Thank goodness, I’m not attending alone. I put on my Trump sweatshirt in celebration of his birthday, my camouflage hat celebrating the army and got out my large flag in honor of Flag Day.
We came because we were curious. I wanted to be there. This is my town, and I felt I had to protect it. I thought there would be maybe 25-30 people there. We live in a small town, after all. Boy, was I naive, ignorant, or just plain stupid? I left there thinking ‘all three.’
This was an experience I never wish to have again. I left emotionally drained and actually held back tears to what I determined was caused by what was a very traumatic experience. Let me tell you about my one hour standing on the side of the road in the town I live and love.
There had to be maybe 200 hundred people (Bernie claims 500) on either side of the road in front of Stowe town hall. I didn’t recognize anyone with the exception of our Selectboard member who chaired this event. What bothered me the most wasn’t the taunting, antagonistic, people who got in our space – literally inches from our beings, harassing us and trying to incite us into some form of physical altercation.
No, what bothered me the most were the signs and the calls for action to take out – yes, murder, kill, however you want to word it – a sitting president. 86-47. There were no less than four separate parties carrying these signs.
We had that event in our country once in my lifetime already. It’s unfathomable to me that people actually want this to happen again. Have they really thought this through?
Here is our Senator, holding these events, and promoting the idea of a tragic event such as murder. This is very disturbing, folks. We had an elected official on the steps of our town hall also condoning these ideas. The fact that these elected officials don’t tone it down or condemn the promotion of killing their opponents scares the heck out of me.
What’s interesting and what I have known for eight years now is that both sides of the school of thought think the other side is ill-informed, stupid, brainwashed, and reading/listening to the wrong sources of information. The fact is, there’s probably too much information at our fingertips.
But I digress. The fact that there’s two schools of thought is a good thing. This is when we’re supposed to meet at the table and actually talk. But that’s no longer happening. It’s gotten violent. We’re watching it play out across the country.
The two young men that decided to antagonize us and stand inches away from us were not from Stowe. At least one was from California. I could tell by the way they invaded our personal space and kept taunting and saying horrible things to us, that they were hoping we would slip slightly and step on a toe or have an elbow touch them when we swatted a fly. It felt like exactly what they wanted to happen so they could start a riot. These two had to be getting paid.
A gentleman, who stated he was ‘not on our team’, felt the need to get closer to the situation as he explained to these two younger men that they needed to relax. They in turn called him a “homeless old man” and asked him why he was even there. The left even eat their own.
The handful of people who decided to speak at us in disguise of wanting a conversation, chided us, spoke over us, lectured us, and told us we were stupid. It felt very hostile. At one point, a gentleman from England approached me and my friend and asked us if we could explain what is behind this demonstration. Of course, being from England, he lives under a King. I can imagine he may have felt this protest was somehow against him or his country. Is this the thing we want to be portraying to our paying guests in this town? Because this is exactly what we did. Our visitors see our town and country as very hostile. Great. Good job, Stowe.
After the hour of having our innate fight or flight defenses activated, we decided we had enough. We crossed the road and were chanted at with “Shame” as we found our way through the crowd. Another man raced after us wanting to “talk”. I explained that his predecessors claimed the same thing but in essence had no desire to “talk” and I was spent so, I declined his invitation.
And then, perhaps the cause of my overwhelming emotional response on my drive home, two youg boys on bikes came toward us and one said, “Is that Trump?”, referring to the sweatshirt I was wearing. And I said, “yes”, paused and stopped to talk. Well, let me tell you, this young man was very informed. He seemed to me to have been middle school age. What he told me about how he saw the adults a half block in front of him was amazing and sad at the same time. We really should be thinking more about what is being portrayed to our young folks. Not just our words, but our actions, and especially the rhetoric about murder.
I was never interested in politics at that age. And I think it’s a shame the kids of today have to be. Yet, after speaking with this young man, I felt encouraged about our future.
Our journey to the vehicle wasn’t over yet. Sadly, my friend didn’t feel it was safe for me to walk to my car alone. What does that say about our town, our state, our country? That is truly the shame in all of this.
On the side street, just as we turned, a young woman from Minnesota approached us. She initially wanted to know where we lived, where we were from and why we were here. Well, of course, we’re here to celebrate the hard fought war for freedom against the king 249 years ago. Aren’t we? We’re here to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our military. And we’re here to celebrate Flag Day. What was she doing here? Was she being paid too? We engaged briefly with her and the encounter wasn’t as hostile as previous ones. But it wasn’t all good.
We parked at the rec path. We made it to the parking lot unscathed, externally, anyway. Walking toward us were what, to me, appeared to be two younger females with signs. One tall, skinny girl (I’ll call her) with masculine, tough acting demeanor and one shorter one who looked slightly goth. The taller one walked past us yelling profanities and other things I blocked out. After she passed, she turned back toward us, slammed her hands on either side of her pelvis at the top of her legs and yelled “Suck my d–k”.
Wow. This from what certainly appeared to be a female. I turned to look at her and paused, and then said, “Yup, you could actually have one of those”. Apparently, that wasn’t the best thing to say and they both started toward us slinging more slurs and acting like tough chicks from the ‘hood’. I know some will call me out for stereotyping here, but I’m trying to paint the picture. She then whips out her phone and starts videoing the encounter as if something is going to happen here. Is this yet another paid protester inciting violence? Are these the type of people who follow Bernie Sanders?
Are the actions of the people at this protest really what we want to be showing our children? This type of hatred toward people who don’t agree with you on everything is devastating to our society. We found the liberals/progressives to be antagonistic and trying very hard to incite some sort of physical violence with us.
Most of us at this event may live in Stowe or nearby and we share a common love for this place. Where have we gotten to and how much farther is this going to go? Our town, our state, our country is in a very sad, bad way. It needs to change and fast, or this doesn’t end well for anyone. I’m begging those of you who consider yourselves to be liberals or progressives to take a hard look at what is being disseminated from your party now and change the tone. For everyone’s sake.
The author is a Stowe resident and an organizer of election year roadside ‘Trump waves.’