After Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin
Johnston’s memory is short and her indignation misplaced. Fear-mongering is what the gun lobby did in 2008, when firearm sales surged nearly 50 percent in the week after Barack Obama was elected president. By contrast, the Shumlin-Scott statement, while unusual, was hardly inflammatory, as the following excerpt from the opening paragraph suggests: “At this time of national discord, Vermont can present a united voice urging compassion, commitment to community, and fierce dedication to equal rights and justice.” This is not to mention that no one needs to stoke fears about a Trump presidency, given the great job the president-elect has done himself on that score. These are by no means the days of, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
What legitimate fears might Vermonters harbor about the incoming administration? There are too many to enumerate fully, but here are a few. Trump has selected as his national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a man who thinks that the Muslim faith is not a religion but a political ideology and who believes that “radical Islamic terrorism” poses a threat to the very existence of the United States. It is not unreasonable to infer from this that eradicating, rather than containing, that existential threat will be Trump’s goal. That, in turn, would almost certainly require American boots — many of them — back on the ground in the Middle East. Not so many years ago, 21 Vermonters were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, nearly half of them members of the Vermont National Guard. Anyone who has a family member or friend in the Guard must certainly be concerned that new overseas deployments are ahead, with all the grief, worry and disruption of personal life that implies.
Who else might be worried? Well, Vermont residents who obtained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has promised to “repeal and replace with something terrific,” although unspecified, as staff writer Rick Jurgens reported Sunday. The 174,000 low-income state residents who rely on Medicaid have particular reason to be uneasy, as both Trump and Republican leaders are dedicated to reducing the federal government’s role in that program.
Women should definitely worry about losing insurance coverage for birth control and other preventive services with a repeal of the ACA. But, of course, they have many things to be afraid of these days, including such personal violations as being groped with impunity by a stranger on a plane. Presidents do set the tone for national discourse, after all.
Then there are those Vermonters who use marijuana, including those who depend on it for medical relief. Trump has selected for attorney general Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who opposes the current policy of federal non-interference with states that have legalized the use of marijuana in one way or another. His attitude on this subject (as well as on civil rights) can be inferred from a remark he once made about thinking the Ku Klux Klan was fine “until I found out that they smoked pot.” He later dismissed this as a joke, but the jokes people tell often reveal a lot about them.
Naturally, these are fears, along with many others, that Vermonters likely share with many millions of other Americans all across the country. Trump alone has the ability to alleviate them. Whether he chooses to try to do so is one of the first real tests of his leadership.