(originally published on February 14th, 2020)
Bernard Sanders was one of the many urban refugees who landed in the peaceable kingdom of Vermont during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Seeking a simpler way of life in a woodsy place with a live-and-let live ethos, they moved to a chilly, scenic state with pockets of Appalachian-level poverty, an economy tethered to dairy farming and such male rites of passage as shooting deer. Heat in the hideous winters came from wood-burning cast-iron stoves.
Some lived in communes, others tried subsistence farming. Vermont in those days was a fine place to live and a tough place to make a living. (In rural parts of the state, that’s still true.) A smattering of what became known locally as trustafarians, trust-fund hippies raised in Scarsdale, Wellesley or Darien, also moved in.
There were settlements such as Earth People’s Park, an-anything-goes campground nestled on the Canadian border where anarchy reigned. There were acres of home-grown marijuana and summer skinny-dipping in a place where locals joked that there were only three seasons –winter, mud and the fourth of July.
Sanders, a Jewish Brooklyn native and graduate of the University of Chicago, was one of these new Vermonters. He wasn’t a trustafarian; Sanders lived hand-to-mouth, scratching out a living as a carpenter, handyman and maker of historic, Howard Zinn-like film strips for schools. Sanders also helped found a left-leaning third political party called the Liberty Union at the height of anti-Vietnam War sentiment. When then-president Richard Nixon campaigned in the state in 1970 for a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, local lefties showered him with rocks. The New York Times headline said, “Nixon stoned in Vermont.”
Sanders wasn’t one of the stoners; those who know him well have never seen him imbibe anything stronger than the rare beer or glass of wine.
Moderate Protestant Republicans controlled state politics; it wasn’t until 1974 that the state elected a Democratic, Roman Catholic U.S. Senator named Patrick Leahy who is still in office.
Sanders ran election after election as the third party candidate for various offices such as U.S. House and U.S. senator, getting few votes. (He now is making his 23rd campaign for public office, according to longtime University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson.) He became an adept meet-and-greet politician, able to play to the hopes and fears of have-nots.
He eventually shed the third party. Lightning struck in 1981, when he confounded all expectations and won a multi-candidate campaign for mayor of Burlington. With a population of 38,000, it was–and still is–Vermont’s largest city. It’s home to the University of Vermont, New England’s fifth oldest college.
Running as an independent, Sanders relentless retail campaign upset the long-time Democratic mayor, who was head of a machine grown so rusty it couldn’t steal a ten vote election.
At first the Democrats who controlled City Hall decided they wouldn’t let Sanders do anything, not even hire a secretary. One councilor referred to Sanders and his followers as “socialist fungus.”
Council meetings turned into hours-long shouting matches between Sanders and Democrats. He had better luck with moderate Republicans.
But he persisted and took his case to the community. Most of his plans were of the common sense sort. Better snow removal. Opposition to a proposal to build luxury condos along the Lake Champlain waterfront. Paying attention to the arts. Holding property taxes low by seeking alternatives, such as a local sales tax on the restaurant and hotel industries. Filling the potholes. Bringing minor league baseball to the city. Forcing the University of Vermont to make payments in lieu of taxes to the city. He also collected his first real paycheck.
The city became known as the ‘People’s Republic of Burlington” and was featured in national media accounts and even in a Doonesbury cartoon. Yet, some cynics on the left called him “The People’s Republican.”
Sanders parlayed his run as mayor into election to the U.S. House and Senate, where he arguably holds the safest Democratic seat in the nation.
Providence native Tad Devine, a respected Democratic political consultant, has worked for Sanders since the 1990s, but isn’t with him this election. Devine says Sanders is the “same guy” he’s always been, advancing the same liberal ideas.
Now 78, he still writes speeches longhand on yellow legal pads. He was once available to reporters 24/7. Now he rarely speaks to the Vermont press because he doesn’t need them anymore, says Jim Welch, a long time local journalist.
He’s more sanctimonious and angry than he was as a younger man, but his lift the working class rhetoric hasn’t changed. It’s also undeniable that he has moved the conversation in the Democratic Party to the left. Much of it is back to the future; on crucial issues Sanders is more Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson than Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter.
With his leftist sloganeering and thick Brooklyn accent, has there ever been a more improbable Democratic front-runner in modern history?
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon.
