cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/36774531

Northern Vermont went all in on Trump because of his border promises. Then came the changes voters here weren’t anticipating.

By Will Bredderman
09/26/2025 05:55 AM EDT

  • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    I grew up in northern Vermont. There are a lot of people who simply don’t know anything about what happens in the world - Vermont is very much like The Shire that way. The internet is unreliable and I grew up on DSL on copper lines from 1920, so FM radio is incredibly popular. Same with satellite TV. There’s also a massive drug problem and large-scale unemployment, because Vermont (without me passing judgment here) is fairly anti-industry and doesn’t have a lot of economic opportunities, especially up north in more rural areas like the NEK.

    When all you have is people on the radio telling you the opiods ravaging your town are being smuggled from Canada and maybe 200 people in your town total who all listen to the same radio station, it’s really easy to believe whatever you’re told. It’s just ignorance, not of the willful kind but the naive kind. VT is the second whitest state in the union and people will frequently literally almost never meet a black person, and so racism can be a real problem just out of pure naivity.

    Vermont is, in many ways, the land that time left behind in the 40s and they’re kind of only considered progressive because of UVM/Burlington and because they love weed, lol.

    I do love aspects of Vermonters’ heartiness and sense of community, but it has real downsides as well. /rant

      • IronpigsWizard@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        As a frequent traveler to NH, I have seen a Nazi flag or two and/or other sketchy supremacy flags outside a super rural house or two. I have never seen that in VT personally, which does not mean such a thing does not exist.

        Rural NH does seem a bit more…different…than rural VT.