By Ursula Ruedenberg
On February 28, Donald Trump and J, D, Vance staged the extraordinary scene we have all seen by now in a meeting at the Oval Office of the White House where they made their hostility towards Ukraine clear to the world while attempting to publicly humiliate Ukraine’s President.
February 28 was a Friday. The next day, both Trump and Vance went on vacation. Vance headed out through the Mad River Valley in Vermont to go skiing. The Mad River Valley is a beautiful, small valley in the mountains of Central Vermont. It consists of resorts and the tiny towns of Waitsfield, North Waitsfield, Warren, Fayston and Moretown. The Vance family was planning to stay in a resort in Warren.
But the area is also home to a grassroots community group consisting of four people called Indivisible Mad River Valley. They are part of the national grassroots organization Indivisible which defines its mission as remaking democracy “action by action, day by day, group by group.” On their website, they describe themselves this way: “Brought together by a practical guide to resist the Trump agenda, Indivisible is a movement of thousands of group leaders and more than a million members taking regular, iterative and increasingly complex actions to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions and fight for progressive policies. They make calls. They show up. They speak with their neighbors. They organize. And, through that work, they’ve built hundreds of mini-movements in support of their local values.”
Tisa Rennau is one of the four people who make up Indivisible Mad River Valley. When she and the others heard that Vance was coming, they sprang into action. They had four days to plan a modest demo. What they got instead was thousands of protesters. On Saturday, videos began appearing showing people standing in the snow, lining the route towards Vance’s ski resort with Ukrainian flags and homemade signs calling him a traitor, a national disgrace, and telling him to go ski in Russia. The Vance family canceled their reservation at the resort and cut their vacation short while staying with a private family.
Tisa Rennau graciously agreed to speak with me to tell us about that experience.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Tisa Rennau, welcome.
Tisa Rennau: Thank you for having me.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Why did you do this? Why did you demonstrate against J. D. Vance when he came to Vermont?
Tisa Rennau: We learned that he was coming to Vermont with very short notice. It was a Monday, and he was scheduled to come that following weekend. And, when we learned that we had an opportunity to plan some sort of protest, we just went right to work.
We got together on a Zoom right away because, with someone who was coming to visit while thousands of people are losing their jobs and losing their healthcare, we were simply outraged that he would find time to come and recreate here in Vermont. It just was really upsetting to all of us.
We had no idea that the small protests that we were planning for that Saturday would mushroom into the protest it became because of that White House interaction Friday where J. D. Vance particularly humiliated Vladimir Zelensky. That was what really inspired people to come out in huge numbers for our protest. We’re a small town. Waitsfield has a population of less than 2000. So, to have a thousand to 3000 people appear for this protest was remarkable. There was some representation from people who are in support of Trump, but it was a much smaller group of five or six or seven people.
Ursula Ruedenberg: The protests actually had been organized prior to the White House talk?
Tisa Rennau: It’s unclear how large it would have been if it had just been about the current policies that the administration is trying to jam down people’s throats. But I think that was probably the final straw.
Ursula Ruedenberg: The meeting with Zelensky turned it into a large protest.
Tisa Rennau: Yes, yes. We are feeling betrayed by this administration, and I don’t believe that this is what we expect our country to do, to support a war criminal after all these years of defending the rights of a sovereign nation. This is not the America we expect to be.
Ursula Ruedenberg: So it was a feeling of betrayal of who we are.
Tisa Rennau: Yes, absolutely outrage because we’re crippling a country that has worked so hard to try to maintain their independence. And I think the worst part is this idea that we’re no longer sharing intelligence, which is signing the death sentences of Ukrainians. I can’t bear it. I really can’t bear it.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Can you describe a little bit what happened? Where did it happen? Where did people gather? What did they do when they were there?
Tisa Rennau: When we learned that J. D. Vance and his family were coming to the valley, and this was seriously on Monday, it was very clear that, originally, he was going to be staying at a small inn in Warren, Vermont, very close to Waitsfield. But we would not have been very effective, we would not have been able to get anywhere near him with the Secret Service.
So we contacted our regional Indivisible national representative, Judith Stadtman, and asked for guidance. Their guidance was to pick a venue where many people could gather that was central, which was Waitsfield. Waitsfield has a wonderful, long Main Street, and we were able to work with our local newspaper editor to get an ad in the paper honestly past deadline.
We scheduled the protests for 9 to 10; and, by the time we were there on Saturday morning, people had already gathered. The streets were already filling up. People were driving in; the parking lots were filled up; and people were knee deep up and down the street with all these remarkable signs that they created. It was pretty overwhelming.
Ursula Ruedenberg: And what kind of people were they?
Tisa Rennau: Americans, all across the spectrum, caring about their country, plenty of families, young people, old people. I’m a grandmother.
Ursula Ruedenberg: And what kind of feeling did you pick up?
Tisa Rennau: The feeling was, I don’t want to say joy, but joy in looking around and realizing they were in community with everyone else and that everyone had the same purpose for being there.
We are so humbled and so grateful and actually relieved that there are so many people that really care now about what is happening and are speaking out. I can say that that really felt empowering to people right now, when they have felt like they haven’t had a voice.
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Ursula Ruedenberg: Did Vance’s car drive through this?
Tisa Rennau: He saw probably part of it. I didn’t see him, but he did come down through and would have seen the beginning of the demonstration as he was headed to go skiing at Sugarbush, although he released a statement that he wasn’t really aware of the protests happening. I think that’s gratuitous for him to say.
Ursula Ruedenberg: And then is it my understanding that he ended up not going there.
Tisa Rennau: He did not stay at that inn in Warren, so they moved to another location in Fayston, a private home.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Did the inn itself make any statement?
Tisa Rennau: The inn did. Originally, it made the statement that he was planning to visit, and then they also made the statement that he was no longer going to stay with them. But, as I understand, the Warren store, which is right across from The Pitcher Inn, was offering coffee to the protesters.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Was there media covering the demonstration?
Tisa Rennau: There was a fair amount of media. Information was getting out pretty quickly about the size of the protest, local media, I think Vermont Public, their station from Boston was there.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Were there protests in other towns?
Tisa Rennau: The town of Warren, which is where Sugarbush Ski Resort is located, is a very tiny town; but there were protests taking place there, as well as a car parade that was organized by another grassroots group. They had signs in their cars, and they did a continuous loop up to the Sugarbush ski area and back, protesting his arrival here in our valley.
Ursula Ruedenberg: Did you talk with a lot of the people who showed up and find out where they came from and what they wanted?
Tisa Rennau: People were there because this was an opportunity to speak out. The things that this administration is doing are not helping people. They are harming people. And I don’t think that this is what Americans voted for.
And I was so grateful that our little Indivisible Mad River Valley organization was able to provide an opportunity for people to speak out, which I don’t think we’ve had. We’ve been in this administration for what, six or seven weeks, and people are angry. They’re angry about the destruction of our governmental agencies. They’re angry about the theft of their personal data. They’re angry about this unelected individual making decisions about policy.
Ursula Ruedenberg: You’re referring to Musk.
Tisa Rennau: Yes, this is illegal, unconstitutional behavior. We’re feeling held hostage by this Republican regime at this point, and I don’t think that this is what Americans voted for. So, we have to hope that we can get to a 2026 midterm election. And we have to hope we can get to a 2028 Presidential election, and we have to work really hard throughout this country.
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Ursula Ruedenberg: Can you talk for a minute about your organization and what your goals are?
Tisa Rennau: Indivisible Mad River Valley is this wonderful grassroots organization. This is a small group that really came into being in 2016 right after the first election of Donald Trump and right after the huge Women’s March protest down in Washington.
I have to give credit to people who came before me and since then. This organization is dedicated to protecting our democracy and supporting voting rights, not only here in Vermont, but across the country and the states where there’s a fair amount of gerrymandering and voter intimidation.
So we write postcards; we do phone banking; and, in this last election, we did canvassing. We did text banking, and we find whatever method we can to take an action that might have an impact. We raise money. In this last election cycle, we worked very closely with the Democratic Party in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to help them get the vote out.
And we’re going to be putting a lot of pressure on the U. S. House of Representatives and on the Senate; and, until we can get this Congress to stop abdicating their responsibilities, most of these grassroots organizations are going to be working very, very, very hard to unseat those majorities. That’s our strategy because that’s the only thing we can really do at this point, speaking to everyone and agitating with your representatives.
Ursula Ruedenberg: So your main focus is voting?
Tisa Rennau: And prayers. We need them. Yes, I would say it is voting because that is the constitutional right that we have. In this last election, it’s just devastating to know that there were 90 million people who didn’t vote. We can’t even imagine the difference that would have made. We don’t know what those 90 million people were thinking. Likely they weren’t happy with either candidate, so they just abdicated their right to vote,
Ursula Ruedenberg: And then this demonstration fit in with that?
Tisa Rennau: Absolutely. The theme of our protest was outrage, outrage at what is happening to this country. It’s so important. We are being manipulated by the way that people are receiving information now. My sister was in a protest down in Louisiana, and one of the signs that really struck her was a sign that said, “Truth Decay.” I think people are really struggling with how to get verifiable information, and there are so many people who are willingly receiving information from sources that are meant to entertain and divide and to stoke. That’s what we’re watching. We’re watching a production
Ursula Ruedenberg: Is there anything you would like to say, since you have this platform at this moment?
Tisa Rennau: There is one thing that I really wanted to have promoted at the protest but that didn’t get a lot of attention. I’ll say it again here because I think this is the most important thing.
I’m asking everyone to show up for yourself, show up for your family, show up for your community, your county, your state. Show up as an American and let us move forward and become the country we want to be.
Ursula Ruedenberg And what do you want us to be?
Tisa Rennau: A free country. We the people, to pursue life, liberty and happiness. We do care. I really want that message clause, even if I don’t know all the details.
Thank you. Ursula.
Indivisible, the national organization, can be found at indivisible.org.
Image donated by Tisa Rennau.