Bob Stannard: Do we need another storm to bring us all together?

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This commentary is by Bob Stannard of Manchester, an author, musician and former state legislator and lobbyist.

Ten years ago, I was driving home from attending the North River Blues Festival outside of Boston. When I left this morning about 10:30, the trees were bent from the wind.

Watching the season on TV with my friends and festival makers, John Hall and Ellie Johnson, it was clear that the ride home would be difficult. This is.

It took me two hours to get to Jamaica, Vermont, and then two and a half hours to get from Jamaica to Manchester. Power lines were turned off. The trees are down. The road sections are under 4 feet of water. The rivers not only spilled on their banks; they take out the banks that once contained them. It was clear we were in for a rough ride.

As it turns out, hopefully Tropical Storm Irene could be one of the best things that has happened to us in a long time.

No, I’m not talking about breakdown and huge personal loss. I’m referring to what happened after the rain stopped. Immediately after the storm subsided, we saw that our family, friends and neighbors would have trouble.

What is our response? The Vermonters fully expected that they would; they help those in need. The effort to volunteer to explode once the sun comes out may not have been new, but it’s something many of us haven’t seen in a very long time.

We’ve proven in the country that, when things go wrong in Vermont, those who live here naturally know what to do. We knew from the beginning what to do and we did it. Locals teamed up with newcomers to rescue those affected by the storm. When the storm hit, Vermont came together.

America is now in the throes of a bigger storm a storm that could reorganize our democracy just as Irene reconfigured our landscape. Last week more than 20,000 people came to Washington, DC, in support of the U.S. Senate’s passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights and For the People Act bill.

Both pieces of legislation were passed in the House. Their fate in the Senate does not look good. The House passed voting rights bills without a Republican vote. In order for the Senate to pass, we will have to end this amendment or carve out legislation, because right now there are no Republicans in the Senate who will support any of them.

The lack of Republican support is not based on ideology as much as it is safety. Over the decades, it has become clear that the more Americans vote, the more likely the Republicans are likely to win.

Voting restrictions began to creep into state legislatures in the 1980s. After Donald Trump’s defeat, the effort moved at warp pace, with 18 majority Republican -controlled states working hard to enact the strictest voting law in American history.

Many have asked: Why do we now see this enhanced effort to keep Americans from voting? Before the last presidential election, incumbent Donald Trump said, that the only way he could be defeated was if the elections took place. Of course, as he says this, he is actively trying to derail the election of an action that impeach him a second time.

On Nov. 6, he lost his re -election election to Joe Biden, who not only beat him, but beat him by seven million votes. In all, 81 million Americans voted for Biden compared to 74 million for Trump.

The number isn’t even close, the number has proven to be accurate, but it hasn’t stopped Trump and radical Republicans from advocating Trump’s Big Lie that the election was illegal. This Big Lie resulted in an insurrection on January 6 carried out by radical Trump and Republican supporters.

Elections are legitimate and that is what Republicans fear. They see what is written on the wall. This Lincoln party has been hijacked by radical right-wing extremists. They have known for a long time that the only way they can win is to keep minorities from voting, because minorities tend to vote Democrats.

Why? Because they, along with a large majority of Americans, see that the GOP now means more than tax cuts for those who don’t need them and banning masks for those who need them.

America may need a very bad hurricane a hurricane that will force us together to do the right thing by its citizens. Perhaps the difference is that when Tropical Storm Irene ended, Vermonters were eager to help their neighbors.

It is not sure what will happen when this man -made storm to destroy our democracy is over. Will we see the outpouring of love and support as we have seen here in Vermont? Or when this storm on voting rights ends, if it does end at all, will we continue to see the ugly bottom line of a radical America?

Perhaps a bad storm will take for America to get back on track and back to work.

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