Vermont lawmakers are sounding an alarm over what they claim are President Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies.
The deep-blue state’s two U.S. senators and one House member hosted a Facebook Live event Wednesday to warn constituents of what they say is a growing national threat posed by rapidly expanding executive power.
“The whole point of our separation of powers is the wisdom that you can’t concentrate power in one man or woman or one institution,” said Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat. “And unless we’re willing in the Senate to stick up for the constitutional obligation that the Constitution gives us to be a separate and equal branch of government, we’re imperiled.”
Rep. Becca Balint, also a Democrat, said, “We know how this ends because you can look at autocrats around the world, authoritarian governments around the world — this is how they operate. They see how much they can get away with.”
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Balint referenced images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. She said the National Guard is being “used against us.”
“The other piece of the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that was passed that a lot of people don’t realize is they super-sized the budget for ICE to increase the reign of terror, and this is, I believe, to beat us into submission and silence,” she said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said that many Republican Party members are “not fascists, they’re not authoritarians, but they are afraid.”
“What we have seen in recent months, there is a reason for them to be afraid,” Sanders said. “You remember when Elon Musk had his email that killed the initial CR, basically. He says, ‘You vote against the president, or my desires, we’re going to primary you. We have unlimited amounts of money. We will defeat you.’”
Sanders continued, “They’re afraid they’ll be primaried with unlimited amounts of money to defeat them. So you got a Republican Party with some decent people, conservative people. Peter knows them, Becca knows them, but they are afraid, and that is terrifying. That is not what American democracy is supposed to be.”
Welch said Trump is acting with a “complete and total abuse of power.”
“That’s why it’s so important for us to resist and resist now, because the more we relent to this power, the more endangered we all are,” he said.
Each member of Vermont’s congressional delegation blamed the federal government shutdown on Republicans not willing to hold conversations with Democrats.
“There has been no willingness to work with Democrats, and so we would all like to get to a place where we could get to a bipartisan solution, but it is not acceptable for us to just roll over and accept the terms that they are offering,” Balint said.
Welch added: “They’re waiting for Trump to give them the OK. And what’s heartbreaking to me about that is if you’re a United States senator or a United States member of Congress, our obligation is to the people we represent — it’s not guilty to a president, whether it’s in our case, it was Biden or Trump, our obligation is to the people of Vermont, and they’re getting hammered on this.”
On the other hand, Republicans have criticized Democrats and blamed them for the shutdown.
In a post on X, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, “It’s been one week since Democrats shut down the government and put their far-left base before the American people. If just a handful of Senate Democrats would join Republicans, we could end this shutdown in a matter of hours and continue the bipartisan appropriations process.”
Sanders referenced a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research organization, to explain the effect the shutdown will have on individual Vermonters if lawmakers are not able to reach a compromise that funds and extends government health care benefits.
“If you are living in Bennington, Vermont, and you make $82,000 a year, you will see your premiums go up from $578 a month to $2,550,” he said.
“Who the hell can afford that?” Sanders asked.
Sanders added that a 30-year-old Burlington, Vermont, resident earning $31,000 annually would see his or her premiums go from $600 a year to $2,000 a year. A family of four in Stowe, Vermont, making $99,000 a year, would see their premiums increase by $3,700 a year, he said.
Welch said, “If we don’t act, and we’re the only ones who can right now, then Vermonters are going to lose health care. And again, whether they voted for Trump or they voted for Harris, their family is entitled to have affordable access to health care, and we want to fight for health care for everybody. That’s what’s in jeopardy here.”
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