SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — On a hot, muggy afternoon July 9, Dennis Richter, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for vice president, joined campaigners here outside a Hannaford supermarket. He met Robert Gray, a telephone lineman from Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, who came to shop.
“Too many people think they can’t make a change. That those of us who are for big changes are too small and weak,” Gray said.
“Under capitalism, everything is set up to reinforce that idea,” Richter replied. “But when workers engage in struggle, that’s when we discover our capacities and our self-worth. Today, many workers are in a mood to fight.”
“The country is run by money, by people who don’t work,” Gray said. “They go to different schools than we do, to learn how to become wealthier, to be another Rockefeller.”
“They’re a class, they’re capitalists,” Richter said. “They see exploiting us as their right. Workers have to take power out of their hands, to form our own government.
“The needs of working people don’t matter to them at all. They face a worldwide crisis of their capitalist system, with growing instability and rising conflicts. They’re all expanding their armed forces. Imperialist rulers everywhere are colliding based on competing interests that are sharpening today.”
In addition to campaigning here, the SWP is gathering signatures on petitions to put Rachele Fruit, the party’s candidate for president, on the ballot along with Richter. They’re getting an excellent response.
After campaigning, Richter sat down with the Militant to recount some of his experiences in bringing the party’s working-class alternative to workers here. He described one exchange outside a Walmart in Williston after he introduced himself to a shopper. “The first words out of her mouth were, ‘I’m a Republican.’ I said, ‘That’s fine. Do you have a few minutes to talk?’”
She’s a former house cleaner who was injured on the job and is on disability. “When she said that she was concerned only about what is going on in Vermont, not the rest of the world, I said what goes on in the world affects every working person, including in Vermont,” said Richter. “From Russia’s war against Ukrainian independence to Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7 attack on Jews in Israel, all working people need to take a side, to defend our class and our allies.
“She immediately agreed that antisemitic attacks are on the rise and need to be confronted.”
Not everyone they discuss politics with can sign the petition. One example is immigrant workers who have come here from around the world.
“At the Walmart, I talked with a mother and daughter from Bosnia who have settled in Vermont. The mother is watching international politics with anxiety because of the parallels she sees in Ukraine with the war that ripped apart Yugoslavia in the 1990s,” Richter said. Until Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Yugoslav conflict was the biggest ground war on the European continent since World War II.
“I explained that the same forces that led to World Wars I and II are fueling the opening guns of World War III today,” Richter said. “While she has reason to be anxious, there is also reason to be optimistic that the working class can prevent the march toward a new imperialist war. We need to build revolutionary workers parties in the U.S. and throughout the world. I told her that ultimately, the working class needs to take power out of the hands of the war makers.
“She said that the majority of working people have good intentions — a source of optimism for the future. I agreed and pointed to the struggles of workers, from flight attendants to Vermont nurses who threatened to strike, as examples of workers who have said enough and are fighting to defend working-class interests, like higher wages, safer conditions and building solidarity in our class.”
‘Break with parties of capitalism’
Campaign supporters got a good response in St. Albans, a town of 7,000 located 30 miles north of Burlington, an agricultural area. “We need to break with the parties of capitalism and form a party of our own — a party of labor,” Socialist Workers Party campaigner Beverly Benjamin told two farmers from nearby Bakersfield in the Walmart parking lot.
“We work hard on our farm, just the two of us producing some 15,000 pounds of garlic a year. We can’t see ourselves voting for either the Democrats or the Republicans,” Marie-Danielle Saint Hilaire said. She reached for the petition to sign for Fruit and Richter. Her husband did so also and picked up a copy of the Militant to learn more about the working-class alternative.
Abby Ryea, 21, told SWP campaigners, “I worked six days a week and brought home just about $300. You can’t support a family of three and make a truck payment that way.”
“Both the Democrats and Republicans are eroding women’s choices and rights, including the right to have an abortion,” John Greenia, who works at a help desk in a nearby medical clinic added. “It’s important to look at all stages of family planning. You aren’t ‘pro-life’ if once a child is born you don’t care about its life.”
“Workers can solve these problems,” SWP petitioner Abigail Rosen said. “A party of labor would fight for women’s emancipation by uniting and mobilizing working people independent of the bosses’ parties in a fight for jobs, quality housing, child care, for maternal care and safe contraceptives and for the decriminalization of abortion.”
“I would like to read more about that,” Greenia said, picking up the Militant.
Outside Shaw’s supermarket in Williston, Tony Lane approached a worker heading for his pickup truck, handing him a flyer for Rachele Fruit and the SWP campaign. The worker asked, “What is she? Democrat or Republican?”
“Neither. She’s the working-class alternative to both of the bosses’ parties,” Lane responded.
“No. You’ve got to be one or the other,” came the reply. “I say there is only one choice: Republican.”
The worker said that he’s not a big supporter of Donald Trump, but was concerned about the Democrats’ politically motivated legal attacks against the Republican candidate. “The SWP candidates oppose all attacks on constitutional freedoms,” Lane said. “They’re a deadly danger to working people.”
The response, “OK. I’ll take that flyer and read it.”
Campaigners often explain that the SWP has a rich continuity, back to the Bolshevik Revolution led by V.I. Lenin in Russia and the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro. Even when some people don’t agree, they can see what that continuity is.
When Joanne Kuniansky, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, was campaigning for the national ticket in Vermont, she engaged a couple originally from the former Soviet Union.
“Rachele Fruit is a hotel worker and union member who is running for president to present a working-class voice in these elections,” she told them. “Fruit explains workers need to break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a party of labor that fights for the interests of all working people, that fights for workers power.”
The couple said they had experience in Russia with what Kuniansky is advocating, and “it doesn’t work.” They said uneducated workers took over and the results were disastrous. Kuniansky disagreed, saying the anti-working-class Stalinist regime there was a product of a counterrevolution against the course led by Lenin.
The couple left, but the woman returned, determined to get in the last word. She told Kuniansky, “This idea of housekeepers running the country, that’s Lenin!”
“On that we agree,” Kuniansky said.
On track to make the ballot
In the first 11 days of a 16-day campaign to get the SWP ticket on the ballot, supporters have fanned out across the state. They’ve sold 29 subscriptions to the Militant, 19 books by leaders of the SWP, and collected 1,474 signatures.
Campaign organizers plan to get several hundred more to ensure they go over the state requirement of 1,000 valid signatures, which will be certified by state officials.
To join in the final effort to go over the top, or to make a contribution, contact the SWP campaign at (646) 434-8117 or newyorkswp@gmail.com
Joanne Kuniansky and Tony Lane contributed to this article.
