This installment of Red State Vermont contains two interviews, produced by Lorenza Fechter of Montpelier High School and Adelyne Collin of Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, for the Underground Workshop, VTDigger’s platform for student journalism.
Editor’s Note: Vermonters cast 112,704 votes for Donald Trump and 248,412 votes for Phil Scott last November. The people behind these numbers often have little in common with each other or with traditional political labels. The interviews in this series explore just a few of the wide-ranging perspectives and attitudes among Vermonters who identify as conservative or Republican. They do not represent the views of Vermont’s Republican Party, the student journalists who conducted the interviews, or VTDigger — each of these Vermonters speaks only for themselves. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
The Logger
by Lorenza Fechter, Montpelier High School
A few months ago, Rodney Rainville went with his wife and daughter to a store.
Walking in, they noticed that the store clerk was laughing with a customer. They thought nothing of it, until the store clerk’s demeanor suddenly changed.
The only difference? A man of color had walked in. The store clerk’s happiness disappeared, staring at the man and growing quiet.
Rodney was incredulous. His wife said:
“Did that man just change all of a sudden when that Black man walked in?”
Rodney nodded, he had noticed it as well.
“It was obvious,” he said, upset about the apparent change in attitude toward this man.
“You could see that he treated him differently, so yeah, racism is alive and well,“ he said. ”I don’t know what anybody could do about it, but you see it firsthand. … The store clerk was pretty short with him.”
Rodney Rainville is an independent, but farther right than the Democratic majority in Vermont. He attributes his affiliation as an independent in a widely Democratic state partially to his position owning a logging and trucking business in Bethel, Vermont. This work has been a part of his family since the first Rainville immigrated to Vermont. He says his family has worked in this business “as far back as the king and queen eras.”
“I don’t know if I act differently because I own my own business,” he said,”or [if] I own my business because I act differently.”
Who do you think most influenced your political point of view in your family?
It’s kind of funny. My dad was a registered Democrat but always voted Republican. But the Democrats were different when he was growing up, I think … and I think the Democrats changed after a while and he didn’t change with them.
When you were growing up, did you ever get the sense that that’s how you were going to be growing up? As a role model almost?
I think so, my father was involved — you know I’m on the school board, right?
No, I didn’t know that.
Yeah, I’m on the school board, and it’s kind of funny. My father was on the school board in the 1960s, and he was part of the school board when they merged schools from Columbia, New Hampshire, into Colebrook, New Hampshire, and then, how many years later? 50 years later, I’m on the school board where we’re merging Bethel and Royalton together.
And I didn’t really plan out, “Oh, I’m going to be on the school board because my dad was”; it just seemed to happen that way.
Can you describe a specific time you were impacted by politics or government policies?
Act 250 probably affects my work as much as anything. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I can’t do the things I want to do. It seems like policies affect everybody every day, one way or the other, because I have bought land and done a little bit of land developing, and Act 250 is something I could see needs work.
What is Act 250?
It’s about the development of property in Vermont. It restricts how big of a lot you have, anything that you do to develop land has to be approved, and it has to go through Act 250, and you have to go through the Act 250 coordinator. And they’re actually pretty good to work with, it’s just, you know, you can’t just do it. You know, these kind of restrictions are somewhat limiting to an owner of an independently owned company.
It’s like you don’t even own the land. Everyone else controls it.
Do you think that conservatives, independents and Republicans, are a political minority in Bethel’s community?
Yeah, I’d say Republicans are 40%. I’d say that there are a lot of Republicans in Vermont, that it’s less than half, and it does seem to be controlled by Democrats. It used to be just the opposite, probably 60 years ago, and then it just kind of changed, it flip-flopped.
I’d say Republicans are less than half for sure.
What do you think about the war in Afghanistan?
It’s better now than it has been in years, the Middle East wars. I wish we could stay out of it; it doesn’t look like we can. I’d like to see our troops come home, that’s for sure, but I think we have to have a presence over there, because you know that [since] basically 9/11 — we were kind of staying out of the Middle East and they just kind of dragged us into it, and we’ve been right in the middle of it ever since.
America does seem to be the police department for the entire world sometimes. We have to kind of protect other people’s human rights, you know, from too much radical government. I think we’re doing a pretty good job over there. Things have been pretty calm.
That’s one of those things the Trump administration seems to be doing right. I mean, really, I haven’t heard anything out of North Korea or the Middle East; they’ve been pretty quiet.
Do you agree with the Black Lives Matter movement?
I agree with Black Lives Matter. At first I was like, “Oh, no, all lives matter,” which is true, I mean obviously. But I think my daughter influences my political views sometimes, because she actually showed me a great video.
There was this person who said, “Well, my house is on fire; I need the fire department at my house.” And the other person is like, “Well, all houses matter.” Well, yeah, but the house that’s on fire matters more. I think that video changed my view on Black Lives Matter.
Photo courtesy of Robert Ide
The Former State Senator
by Adelyne Collin, Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans
Robert Ide is an eighth-generation Vermonter who grew up in Danville, near the Connecticut River.
Years later, while Ide was a part of the Vermont Senate, a friend of his, who was teaching at a high school in New Hampshire, invited him to speak in front of the class. After a 30-minute presentation, Robert asked the students if there were any questions. One boy replied, saying “Yeah, I’ve got one,” and asked, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”
Ide thought to himself, “Wow, if what I’ve just spent time preparing and presenting, if that’s the first question out of the chute.” He believed this was clearly due to New Hampshire’s political culture, holding the first presidential primary in the nation every four years.
Ide was born in 1951 in Danville, growing up as the youngest of four with a “traditional [American] family,” surrounded by local small family-owned farm businesses.
After graduating from the University of Vermont in 1974, Ide became involved in his family business, selling agricultural feed and grain.
Ide served six consecutive two-year terms in the Vermont Senate. Ide sees himself as a moderate Republican and connects to political figures such as Bob Stafford, Jim Jeffords, Jim Douglas and Phil Scott.
“If you identify as a Republican in Vermont, you are a distinct minority,” he said, “and politically you feel that all the time.”
Photo courtesy of Robert Ide
How do you think work has influenced your political views?
After I graduated from UVM, I joined our family business. We were an agricultural feed and grain business. We were a large Blue Seal dealership in Caledonia County. I was working with a lot of people who owned their own businesses that worked the land, that worked very, very hard.
At a very young age, I became a selectman in St. Johnsbury, so I started to learn how the government interacts with the populace. It can play a very, very positive role, or it can become more of a burden as well. It’s trying to find that middle balance that has always been important to me.
What’s your favorite memory from working at your family business?
The people, the friendships. You know, I call them customers, but they were really friends; they were people I had known all my adult life, and families I’d known.
Vermont doesn’t have a great deal of separation, and the people that you played high school basketball with — you might sit with them and watch your kids all play. I really appreciate that about Vermont; it’s a very, very integrated community, and it’s very homogeneous.
How does it feel to live in a state that’s majority liberal and where the news media focuses mainly on Democrats?
If you identify yourself as being a Republican in Vermont, you’re a distinct minority, and politically you feel that all the time. Both political parties in Vermont have very, very wide spectrums.
Geography does influence the two parties. I would say a Democrat from Chittenden County is much more liberal than a Democrat from Caledonia County or Franklin County or Windsor County. There are great schisms within the parties, as well as there are schisms between the parties.
I’ve always considered myself to be one of those people in the middle. I’ve always wanted to have good friends who were members of both parties. I would tell you that I served over my years both in elected office, and in appointed office, with people of both parties that I’ll consider to be my lifelong friends, and people I enjoy being with.
Every now and then there’s somebody in both parties that makes you want to say, “Well, you know, if I had to kick somebody away from my Thanksgiving table, you know, I probably could come up with that name and life would go on and be fine.”
How do you think your experience working as a Vermont senator has affected your political views?
Serving in the Vermont Legislature was one of the greatest joys of my life. It was such a privilege, and you meet so many wonderful people. You meet people who are genuinely trying to solve problems. If there is something I’ve witnessed in the 30 years that I’ve kicked around the Statehouse, it’s that the two parties don’t talk to each other as much as they should.
When there are so few Republicans, you can understand why. … I always tried to find ways to listen to all the opinions and to try to find if there was middle ground. My biggest goal in life is that the government should work. I think it should work for both the citizens and the employees who are working in the state government.
In America we’re very divided because of the political parties. … Do you have any ideas on how America should be, rather than how we’re acting as a nation right now?
I’m deeply, deeply concerned about this issue, and you phrased the question very well…
I do worry that the two parties aren’t talking to each other and seem to hold each other with great disregard. I look at the situation in Washington and just wish that everybody there would come home, and we could start with a new team.
It’s curious to me. I was a motor vehicle commissioner, and eight years is a long time to serve in that capacity anywhere in North America. And our governors — if you look back, we’ve had in my lifetime four-year, six-year, eight-year, and Gov. Dean, who was there for a little more than 10 years. That was an extreme case.
I just think it’s important for people to do a job and realize their time is up and come home. Whether it’s a school principal, a member of the clergy, a DMV commissioner, a governor, or a U.S senator. There’s a time where you’re adding value and a time where your ideas have all been exposed. A turnover on all levels is good.
Is there a specific example that you can think of, where you had to step up and take the role of being a diplomat?
Every year in the budget negotiations. I was on the negotiation committee for the budget — eight times or maybe more, and it’s a very, very difficult end-of-session work, and I frequently was on the conference committee for the transportation bill, too. In both cases, there’s a limited amount of resources, there’s incredible pent-up demand, and you’re trying to figure out where you can put your money where it would do the most good.
One of the things I worked on, which is really — we identified there was a problem but it’s really come to pass in the last couple of years — is the whole higher education question as it relates to UVM and the state colleges and VSAC.
I always felt frustrated that we didn’t make more progress, and we left a problem. We inherited a problem, and I left a problem, and it’s now really, really come to roost. Even in the time I was there, somehow, the declining birthrate just hadn’t become a significant part of the conversation, with so many fewer students graduating from Vermont’s high schools.
When I was at [the] DMV, I could see very clearly what was happening because we sold learner’s permits to 15-year-olds. Approximately 80% of every student who is 15 gets a learner’s permit during that one year. We have a bar graph that showed dramatically that our number of permits sold was dropping off, and to me it was one of the greatest visuals on what’s happening with the school-age population.
You know, I went to Danville High School, and that school is still in existence. The graduating class is a little smaller than when I graduated. A lot of the high schools that I’ve played competitive sports against are no longer schools. If you had said to me five years after I graduated that there will be no Rochester High School, there’ll be no Chelsea High School, I would’ve said, “That’s impossible; Vermont’s going to continue to grow; we’re going to continue to have growing students.”
What is the biggest accomplishment that you feel like you achieved when you were working in the Vermont senate?
My biggest accomplishment was that I felt like I was always an honest broker, and that at the end of the session, when we had to find common ground, I always felt like I was a part of those conversations and helping other people achieve some of their goals.
Nobody gets exactly what they want in legislation, and nobody should be left out. I always valued my role sort of as being a diplomat, trying to bring everyone together, and trying to break down those partisan barriers and focus on the good for the vast majority of Vermonters in the state of Vermont.