By Guy Page
A very large crowd of Donald Trump and Elon Musk opponents braved hypothermia on the Vermont State House lawn Saturday, April 5 and cheered as Vermont Sen. Peter Welch (D) calledl the POTUS “stupid” for his tariff proposals.
Tariffs will raise Vermonters’ costs on everyday items like heating fuel, Welch said. “It makes no sense….Not only is Donald Trump arrogant, he’s really stupid,” Welch exclaimed, drawing a big cheer and laugh from the crowd.
Other scheduled speakers on the windy, drizzly, 35-degree day included former Gov. Madeline Kunin, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers, Treasurer Mike Pieciak, and Attorney General Charity Clark. (In past State House press conferences, Rodgers has heavily criticized Trump for what he says are attacks on free speech, including filing a defamation suit against a major media outlet, and DOGE’s proposed Voice of America spending cuts.)
According to news reports around the state, approximately two dozen “Hands Off!” protests organized by the 5051 network were held in Vermont on a rainy Saturday afternoon from the Northeast Kingdom to Bennington, including Montpelier, Burlington and Vergennes, the Waterbury Roundabout reports. In Montpelier, the police department estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 people gathered for a rally on the Vermont State House lawn and march through the capital. Signs decried fascism and oligarchy and called for protecting individual rights, Social Security and democracy.
VDC stood on the State Street steps of the architecturally magnificent former National Life Insurance Company building – now HQ for the Vermont Agency on Agriculture, Forests and Food Marketing – and watched the rally attendees – mostly older and white, and my demographic radar tells me almost all Vermonters – wave signs and a flags (including a smattering of Old Glory).
Wading into the crowd while wearing my Portland SeaDogs baseball camp and not my MAHA cap, I then videoed about 35 seconds of a one-sided ‘conversation’ in which MAGA hat-wearing 17-year-old Liam Carter of Montpelier listened to a rally attendee who claimed to have worked as professional counselor for 40 years and therefore claimed to know that Trump displays every symptom of a narcissistic personality.
Mostly she described many things she didn’t like about Trump, Musk and MAGA followers.
During the segment (very hard to understand due to the crowd background noise), the rally attendee with a Bernie doll in her pocket called out opponents of abortion, which she called ‘appropriate medical care.’ “They’re bigoted, too f—ing right to life,” she said.
She then railed on DOGE.
“My niece, f-icking smart as [excrement], she works for the National Institutes of Health. You know what happened to her? On Tuesday? She got fired. Now…think about that…. So she’s going to be looking for a job, right…. 500 hundred million people from her specialty also lose their job.”
As she spoke, Carter listened, nodded. Then a rally organizer reminded the woman that attendees have been asked to not “escalate.” Carter said thank you and extends his hand to shake hers, but by this time the speaker has been distracted and turns away.
The young man told VDC he had previously wandered through the crowd where he heard someone say “I hope he dies” and another person say “I hope they hang him.”
In that situation, “the best thing you can do is stay calm,” Carter said. “I can empathize,” as he has family members who hate Trump almost as much as some of the crowd obviously did.
I asked Liam what motivated a teenager to don a MAGA hat and stand amidst 1000 Trump haters.
“What did it for most people my age, is school,” Carter said. “It’s really like affecting us, what they’re doing both in the libraries and in class.
“There are the physical libraries, and then there are digital libraries, and both of them are susceptible to, you know, propaganda being put through. Same thing with the curriculums,” Carter continued. “People just, you know, go in and interject whatever they want, teachers and whatnot. But the real problem is guidance counselors and administrators, they just have free rein and brainwash every incoming generation that comes through, and there’s no chance for them.
“It’s like they’re teaching them what to think and not how to think, is the best way to put it,” Carter said.