What David Zuckerman Tells Us

Progressive elitist or working-class Vermonter?

Vermonters face an important election year – not just nationally, but here in the Green Mountains. Years of steadily increasing property taxes, government fees, and stifling regulations promulgated by a spendthrift, ideologically extreme Progressive legislature have burdened retirees, young Vermonters, and the state’s low-income residents. In the name of helping the poor, the climate, and various social justice “theories” that are neither evidence-based nor economically beneficial, Progressives are pushing many Vermonters to move to other states while undermining the state’s schools and healthcare system.

The theme of the 2024 state election year is visibly displayed in the Lieutenant Governor race between incumbent uber-Progressive David Zuckerman and Republican newbie John Rodgers. The two campaigns largely mirror the two major parties’ respective platform strategies for 2024 voters. Democrats howl against Trump, promise to preserve abortion rights in the most abortion-secure state in the nation, and rail about reversing climate change with expensive “renewables” projects that are regressive and pollute the environment. Republicans talk about economic survival for regular Vermonters. 

An undercurrent of this battle for LG will be how John Rodgers is treated, by both Republicans who may resent some of his past (and current) social positions, and by Democrats unnerved or irked at the snub of his departure. David Zuckerman wasted no time displaying his tack of disparaging John Rodgers by trying to paint him with the Donald Trump Brush rather than respond to John’s very clear policy priorities. In his August 14 newsletter (the day after the Vermont state primary elections) our Lieutenant Governor pounced:

“Donald Trump has made it clear that, if elected, he intends to be a dictator on day one and Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian roadmap outlining the plan from Trump’s second term, makes it clear the Republican Party establishment is 100% on board with MAGA extremism….

Donald Trump’s Republican Party is an insurrectionist party. Full Stop. While some more traditional Republicans wonder where their party went and consider leaving it, he made the decision to sign on to the party that wants to tear our democracy and our country to the ground.

I’m a Progressive/Democrat because I know we will do everything we possibly can to protect our country and our state from Republican extremism. This is a battle we cannot afford to lose.”

Let us connect David’s dots: Donald Trump is a dictator; the Heritage Foundation represents the Republican National Party, not its platform (Donald Trump has specifically disavowed Project 2025, and his outspoken criticisms of it have led to its demise, but Dave still connects this fictitious dot); all Republicans – 100%! (apparently, David has never heard Republican Phil Scott’s consistent opposition to the dreaded Donald, or any Vermont Republicans who differ with the Donald) – are “on board with MAGA extremism”; John Rodgers has an “R” next to his name. Ergo, John Rodgers is an extremist threat to democracy and it is urgent to elect Dave to rescue Vermonters from this great ideological threat.

That’s pretty extreme, since John Rodgers has long supported various liberal causes from which he has not signaled any intention to depart – abortion and gay marriage in particular. John has very loudly but calmly explained that Vermont’s Democrat Party left him by embracing costly policies that inflate government and hurt citizens’ standards of living. David’s efforts to defame John Rodgers with Trumpface are simply vapid, and tell voters much more about what David Zuckerman seeks to conceal – his hand in the policies that John Rodgers rightly explains are not Progressive but regressive and wasteful.

If falsely portraying John Rodgers as a Trump acolyte fails to deceive voters, Bernie acolyte Dave Zuckerman’s attacks on the NEK stonemason as a recipient of Big Donor funds rings even more hollow. Dave writes in his August 14 screed against John Rodgers:

“ Republican mega-donors have come out of the woodwork to support my opponent’s campaign. One of them is millionaire Ritchie Tarrant who spent millions on negative ads trying to defeat Bernie Sanders -- and it’s not just him. Together with his wife and several other members of the Tarrant family, they’ve donated thousands to my Republican challenger.

“Here’s the deal: Big money alone won’t beat us, as long as we have the resources we need to run a strong campaign statewide that engages and mobilizes our voters to get out the vote on Election Day, we will win!”

“Here’s the deal?” (Isn’t that Biden’s shallow hook?) The “deal” is that Dave Zuckerman has far more personal wealth than John Rodgers, and when he wrote this he had already raised nearly as much money for his re-election campaign as Governor Scott. According to VTdigger, Dave had raised $151,433 from 514 donors; Phil Scott had raised $152,802 from 167 donors, and John Rodgers – supposed tool of “big money” donors – had $44,950 from 48 donors. That’s pretty rich: millionaire Dave Zuckerman trying to condemn working-class Rodgers by slandering an individual Rodgers donor… for being a millionaire! And this while Dave had already amassed nearly three-and-a-half times more campaign contributions than Rodgers. So yet again, Dave’s shoehorn simply won’t serve to fit these silly shoes on John Rodgers’ feet. Dave Zuckerman is an elitist who serves other elitist progressives who spike taxes on the working class so they can virtue signal their grand utopian plans. John Rodgers is the opposite – whatever his party affiliation, or who donates to his run. 

Let’s get to the core of David’s attack on John – that John Rodgers is a turncoat. Not a turncoat against Vermont voters, but against the wasteful, economically destructive policies that pushed John out of the Democrat Party as a common sense Vermonter not living off other people’s wealth. That is, Dave Zuckerman’s effort to indict John Rodgers is a stellar endorsement of exactly the policy issues that John has promised to prioritize. 

Here is Dave telling Vermonters how bad John Rodgers is:

“What's crazy about this race is that my opponent used to be a Democrat. He ran for Governor in a quixotic write-in campaign in 2018 -- as a Democrat. Now, this year, he’s a Republican. He is claiming the Democratic party left him.

“What part of the Democratic party left him? Does he not support universal childcare? Does he not support public education or universal school meals? What about fighting climate change or shifting to renewable energy?”

In his steady flow of newsletters, Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman covers the gamut of social causes, from death with dignity to his NEA endorsement to federal legalization of marijuana to “banning” of overtly pornographic books that he seeks to preserve in schools and libraries, but rare is the word against overspending and overtaxing by the government. On the contrary, the call to increase taxes (on the so-called “wealthy”) and government spending is unending. In his August 18 missive, he claimed “I’m ready to work hand in hand with democrats across Vermont and nationwide to deliver a progressive vision for America,” and on August 19 that “We are keeping the Democratic Party values like raising wages, climate protection, affordable housing, progressive taxation, and a bright future for our kids on mission, on message, and working to win up and down the ballot statewide.”

Once again, this shameless list of regressive government waste is paraded proudly as some kind of achievement. Raising wages sparks inflation and hurts workers; net metering, fuel taxes, and EV programs have been patently regressive “climate protection,” imposing costs on the poorest of citizens. Universal school lunches for millionaires are paid for by social security recipients (who also must now pay for free and subsidized daycare on their fixed retirement incomes, while filling their oil tanks or heating with pricey electricity – all driven higher by Dave & co.). The Progressive vision is a bankrupting vision, and the evidence is obvious in the Green Mountains.

But don’t look at the local state policies Dave and his extremist dreamers are inflicting, Dave says – look at Donald Trump and MAGA, and paint John Rodgers with that brush. Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor has no power to impact national policies but should have a role in leading Vermonters away from government waste and overreach using local policy. Dave Z has passionately pushed Vermont policies that are hurting Vermonters – not the bogeyman Trump, the 2025 Project, or the other straw monsters Dave so pathetically attempts to cajole voters with.

This is Vermont election 2024. The Progressives explicitly argue for a one-party representation, labeling anyone on the Right as evil – even their neighbors. Not a very nice way to treat fellow Vermonters, and not at all Democratic. Vermonters are being ruled like peasants by elitists and out-of-state opportunists who get very upset if a native upstart like John Rodgers says “Wait a minute, this ain’t what I signed up for.” Vermonters need to pay attention to the small print and see what Dave Zuckerman and the Progressives have signed them and their children up for – debt and poverty, as far as the eye can see. This is the message of John Rodgers. 

Dave Zuckerman’s emails about John tell us all we need to see. Donald Trump is not destroying Vermont; our hometown Progressives most certainly are. Voters must peer through the “watch-the-birdie” partisan distractions and examine their wallets and tax bills. That is the last place Dave Zuckerman and Vermont’s Progressives want voters’ eyes turned. Like John Rodgers, more and more Democrats are waking up to this truth: policies matter more than Party.

Please vote for policies that will help Vermonters, not hurt them. Nothing is sweeter than Vermont liberty! Let’s preserve our freedoms and affordability for our children….