The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman

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The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman

The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont.

  1. 23H AGO

    Retiring Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine on the state of public health in Vermont

    Dr. Mark Levine retires as Vermont’s health commissioner this week after an eight year tenure marked by historic events. Dr. Levine is best known as the steady hand guiding Vermont’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which by many measures was one of the most successful in the nation. Vermont had the second lowest Covid fatality rate, after Hawaii. According to the Vermont Department of Health, 1,283 people died from the Covid pandemic in Vermont.During the dark days of lockdown in 2020 and 2021, Dr. Levine stood alongside Gov. Phil Scott and reassured anxious Vermonters about how to stay safe, the need for masking and social distancing, and the critical importance of vaccinations. His grandfatherly baritone voice conveyed wisdom and compassion.In announcing Dr. Levine’s retirement, Gov. Scott said, “I will be forever grateful for his advice and counsel over the years, but especially during the pandemic, as he appeared with me daily at press conferences during those difficult days, giving much comfort to Vermonters as our very own ‘Country Doc'.”Sen. Peter Welch said that Dr. Levine “helped Vermont through those incredibly challenging times, and saved many lives.” Prior to Dr. Levine’s appointment as health commissioner in 2017, he worked as a primary care physician and as a professor and associate dean at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, where he still teaches.Dr. Levine, 71, steps away from health care leadership at a fraught and uncertain moment. Public health and science itself have come under unprecedented attack by the Trump administration. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country’s newly appointed secretary of Health and Human Services, has been derided for being a conspiracy theorist and one of the top purveyors of medical misinformation. This week, Kennedy announced the layoffs of 10,000 health workers and $11 billion in cuts to public health grants dolled out to states. This includes a $7 million cut in aid to Vermont that state health officials said would “negatively impact public health in our state.”All of this comes as measles is infecting unvaccinated children in the U.S. in what is already being described as the worst outbreak of this century.Dr. Levine reflected on how Vermont compared to other states in managing the Covid pandemic. “Our economy looks like many of the states that had far worse outcomes from Covid and prioritized their economy more in terms of keeping a lot of sectors open. When you look at the bottom line in the end, our economic status and theirs don't look very different, yet our public health status looks much, much better. And I'm going to hang my hat on that as very, very important for the way we approached the pandemic here in Vermont.”“You know, there isn't a hell of a lot I would have done differently, to be honest,” said Levine.Levine insisted that there are not many critics who say “you shouldn't have had vaccines. You shouldn't have masked us up. You shouldn't have closed down things. When you close them down, they kind of understand that the major outcome was that Vermont fared much better as a state than many other states. So it's hard for me to have too many regrets.”Why did Vermont fare better than other states?“We come from a culture here in Vermont where people look out for their family, they look out for their community, and they work collaboratively,” said Levine. “The second thing is that in public health, we always say, be first, be right, be credible. And the communication that the governor and I and the rest of the team had was frequent, it was with integrity about what we knew and what we didn't yet know, and it was with great transparency … revealing the data every time and showing what we were responding to.”Levine leaves his post with deep concern about what lies ahead for public health. “When disinformation comes from the top,

    43 min

  2. MAR 26

    Best of: New York Times columnist Nick Kristof

    This Vermont Conversation was originally published on May 15, 2024.Nicholas Kristof has been an eyewitness to some of the most iconic political and social transformations of modern times. As a reporter and columnist for the New York Times for the last four decades, Kristof has been telling searing stories about revolutions, genocides, and the impact of global inequality. His work has garnered the top prizes in journalism, including two Pulitzer Prizes. The first was in 1990 for his coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests in China that he shared with his wife, reporter Sheryl WuDunn, the first Pulitzer awarded to a husband-wife team. They have also co-authored five books.Since 2001, Kristof has been a regular op-ed columnist for the Times. His powerful dispatches about the genocide in Darfur earned him a second Pulitzer in 2006. The former head of the International Rescue Committee said that Kristof’s coverage saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Sudan. Kristof has now written a memoir, “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.” He tells the story of growing up on a sheep and cherry farm in rural Oregon, and then attending Harvard and Oxford. He continues to focus his reporting on human rights, global health, poverty and gender inequality. In 2021, Kristof left the Times to run for governor of Oregon, but his foray into politics was cut short a few months later when the Oregon Secretary of State ruled that as a result of living and working out of state for years, he did not meet residency requirements. He returned to his job as a columnist for the New York Times.Despite reporting from some of the world’s grimmest places, Kristof remains stubbornly optimistic. “One thing you see on the front lines, that I’ve seen, is that there has been a real arc of both material and moral progress, and that has left a deep impression on me,” he said. “Side by side with the worst of humanity, you end up encountering the best.”Kristof has seen authoritarian regimes up close, only to come home to see authoritarianism creeping into American politics. Is he worried about the fate of democracy in the U.S.? “It’s not a binary question, but a spectrum,” he replied. “I don’t think that the U.S. will become North Korea or China or Russia. But could we become Hungary? Or could we become Poland under the previous government? I think absolutely. I worry about political violence … DOJ, the military could all be heavily politicized, civil service. I worry about all that. I don’t think that I will be sentenced to Guantanamo. But could there be real impairment of democracy, of governance of freedoms? Absolutely. And I, you know, I’ve seen that in other countries.”Kristof continues to report on human rights abuses and repression, but he insists that he is guided by hope. “I think of despair as sometimes just paralyzing, while hope can be empowering.”

    34 min

  3. MAR 19

    Can capitalism save us? Will Patten believes Vermont shows us how

    In the late 1960s, Will Patten was living in Berkeley, California, attending antiwar protests and shaking his first against capitalism and greedy businessmen.Today, at the age of 80, Patten is a true believer in capitalism and a successful businessman.He tells the story of his odyssey in a new book, “Rescuing Capitalism: Vermont Shows the Way.”Will Patten grew up on a dairy farm in southern Vermont in the 1950s. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University, Patten attended UC Berkeley to get a doctorate in history. But after participating in the Summer of Love in 1967, he dropped out of grad school and headed back to Vermont to “keep the revolution alive.” He opened a natural foods café in Rutland to serve as a gathering place for like-minded radicals. “In other words,” he writes, “I became the enemy: a businessman.” But Patten believed in a different kind of business, one that sought to bring about positive social change.A few years later, Patten met Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who wanted to use their ice cream as a vehicle for social change. Patten saw that they were kindred spirits. He opened one of the first Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops, and soon became director of retail operations overseeing more than 500 scoop shops in a dozen countries. He retired from Ben & Jerry’s in 2007, but quickly unretired to lead Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. In 2012, he unretired again to open the Hinesburg Public House, a community-supported restaurant.Patten now believes that capitalism has been hijacked by corporate profiteers. What can save it, and us? He insists that democratic capitalism, as he calls it, is the way forward, and Vermont has shown the way."(President) Ronald Reagan hijacked capitalism when he proclaimed that government was the problem, and that started a 44 year experiment in letting corporations pursue profits without caring about the earth or its inhabitants. So supply side economics is what hijacked capitalism, and it's been a disaster," said Patten.Unchecked capitalism has led to "the collapse of our environment, a very hostile climate, and the unraveling of our social fabric. We are in a severe existential crisis, and the time to fix that is getting closer and closer. We're running out of time."Why does he think that the solution to runaway capitalism is capitalism?"Capitalism is the only functioning institution there is," said Patten. "Small business is the most respected institution in the country today. I'm not saying that capitalism is going to pull us out of the ditch, but I think — and there are signs that it's beginning — that it is in their own interest to do so."Patten argues that Vermont's socially responsible businesses, including Ben & Jerry's, Gardeners Supply, and Green Mountain Power, offer a model of how business can support positive change. "The businesses that we have have always revered the environment and the and the communities and the people as much as they've revered profits." Businesses can do good not just because "it's a moral imperative, but it's also an economic imperative. They're making money finding solutions to the crises we face."What would Patten tell the '60s radical version of himself?"I would probably tell him to do what I did, which was to get into the belly of the beast and change it from the inside."

    30 min

  4. MAR 12

    'Another World is Possible', says journalist Natasha Hakimi Zapata

    Americans have come to assume that heavy medical debt, unaffordable housing and lack of quality child care are normal features of life. Is there another way?Journalist Natasha Hakimi Zapata traveled the world to find out how other countries are solving problems that plague the United States. From housing, climate change and public education, to addiction and health care, Hakimi Zapata found innovative and affordable approaches that do better. She reports on her globetrotting investigation in her new book, “Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe.”Natasha Hakimi Zapata is an award-winning journalist, university lecturer and translator. She is the former foreign editor of Truthdig, and her work has appeared in The Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, In These Times and elsewhere.Hakimi Zapata said she “took a crib-to-crypt approach to policy,” including a look at universal healthcare in the UK, family friendly policies in Norway, "public-housing-for-all in Singapore, universal public education in Finland, drug decriminalization in Portugal, ...internet as a human right policies in Estonia, renewable energy transition in Uruguay, biodiversity protections in Costa Rica, and then finally, sort of the end of a lifetime, with universal non-contributory pensions in New Zealand.”Hakimi Zapata spoke about Portugal’s decision in 2000 to decriminalize personal drug possession. “Not only did addiction rates fall — overdose deaths fell, HIV/AIDS rates fell, but so did drug use.”Portugal has demonstrated that “if you treat this as a public health issue … you allow people to reach out for help without the fear of incarceration.”Hakimi Zapata noted, “There's this myth at the core of American society that somehow places like Norway can afford these great policies because everyone pays more taxes. And the truth is they have a more progressive stepped tax system than we do. They do not have off ramps for the wealthiest Americans or corporations to pay less, or nothing, like we do in the US.”Hakimi Zapata insisted that progressive social policies often take root in difficult times. The National Health Service in the UK came “out of the ashes of World War II. You have Uruguay’s renewable grid transition coming out of long periods of literal darkness in which they couldn't keep the lights on in their own country.”“At this moment, remember that things can change for the better nearly as quickly as they can change for the worse, and we can still make things better.”

    52 min

  5. MAR 5

    Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov on why Trump admires Putin

    In Donald Trump’s world, friends and enemies trade places with breathtaking speed. Consider the case of Ukraine.President Joe Biden hailed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “the man of the year” and pledged that the U.S. “will not walk away from Ukraine” in its war against Russia, which attacked Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014, and launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Last week, President Donald Trump called Zelensky “a dictator,” falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, and effectively walked away from Ukraine by halting the delivery of weapons and stopping intelligence sharing. Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as “savvy” and a “genius.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed the whiplash that many are feeling about Trump when he said, "Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense." Yaroslav Trofimov has long been making sense of a complicated world. He is the chief foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Trofimov was born in Ukraine and has reported from the front lines there. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023 for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022 for his work on Afghanistan, and won the National Press Club award for political analysis in 2024. He is the author of four books, including “No Country for Love,” a historical novel set in Ukraine that was inspired by his family history, and was published this month.Describing the disastrous meeting between Presidents Zelensky and Trump, Trofimov quoted Lech Walesa, the former trade union leader and president of Poland, who co-signed a letter with former Polish political prisoners saying that “the meeting in the Oval Office reminded him of the interrogations he had in the communist secret police rooms and in the kangaroo communist courts, where, as he said, we were also told we have no cards.”“Zelensky told Trump that I'd like to sign an agreement, but what is the guarantee that Putin won’t attack again? And Trump's response was basically, Trust me bro.”Trump’s “priority is not a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. His main priority seems to be to open up relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, economic, political, geopolitical,” said Trofimov.“Zelensky is just a chip to be traded, and it looks like the administration will be perfectly happy for the war to end on Russia's terms, meaning that Ukraine will fall back on the de facto Russian rule (under) Russian authority as long as its mineral wealth is sent over the United States.”What is behind Trump’s warm embrace of Putin?Trofimov explained that Putin “has always believed that big powers like Russia have the right to a sphere of influence, to arrange things in the neighborhood, and that it's a natural right. And President Putin has described his policy as the Monroe Doctrine 2.0, which is the American version of this 19th century imperialism.”Similarly, Trump is “laying claims on Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, which is very similar to the language that Putin is using against Ukraine or the Baltic states. It is also kind of aided by changes inside the American Conservative ... MAGA movement, where a certain fetishization of Russia has taken hold.”“In the, in the collective imagination of parts of MAGA, Russia is seen as this beacon of Christian family values, traditional values, this antidote to the woke virus. It couldn’t be further from the actual Russia that exists, which is a country with one of (the highest) abortion and divorce rates, with rapidly shrinking population, with endemic corruption.”What will happen to Ukraine if the U.S. ends its support?

    34 min

  6. FEB 26

    The Mirnavator challenges herself and others to get outside their comfort zone

    Mirna Valerio, aka The Mirnavator, would like you to join her outside her comfort zone.That’s where I found her when we were both backcountry skiing at Bolton Valley recently. I immediately recognized her from Instagram, where she has 165k followers at @themirnavator. But when I called her an “influencer,” she quickly corrected me. She said she prefers “possibility model.”Valerio, 49, is a former school teacher and author of the acclaimed blog, Fat Girl Running. The resident of Winooski is now a full-time professional athlete who has attracted legions of fans for her humor and honesty as she takes on big challenges, including multi-day ultramarathons. A self-described large woman and slow runner, she is a champion of body positivity. She hopes that as a Black women participating in what have been traditional white spaces — such as skiing, running and endurance sports — she can show people that being active and joyful do not know bounds of color, size, age, ability or any other difference.Valerio has been profiled in numerous national news outlets including NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Runners World and the Today Show. She was recognized in 2018 by National Geographic as an Adventurer of the Year.Valerio has a book, “A Beautiful Work in Progress,” that she also hopes will inspire and motivate people.Valerio explained that it was 2015 when she started getting attention for her blog “about me being a plus size Black ultra marathoner.” It was “just me doing long distance in the body that I have, and crushing stereotypes of being of a fat person doing sports.”Valerio has a message to others. “People will always have something to say and an opinion about what you look like, the things that you do, what they think you should be doing, what they think you shouldn't be doing, and all of that's going to keep existing. But you can make a choice as to whether or not you are going to let that run your life.”“I say, you know, let curiosity be your guide. …And do the things that you need to do for yourself. Even though all of that other negative talk, it might be negative self talk too, even though all of that exists, you go out and do what you need and want to do for yourself.”Valerio, who is an unapologetic advocate of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), says, “When I show up in a space that has traditionally not seen someone like me in that space, whether it's because of my body size, my gender or my race, I am sending a message, and it's not always easy. …Nature is for everybody. These lakes, these reservoirs, these camp spots, are for everyone. And I want everybody to be able to experience the delight and wonder of being out of nature. So if that means that I step into a space that's primarily white or that has previously been hostile to Black people or people of any other sort of non white identities, then I'm going to keep doing it, just so people can see me and know that they're going to be okay too.”

    36 min

  7. FEB 19

    'An attempted coup' — Rep. Becca Balint on Trump's power grab

    Is President Donald Trump staging a coup?“It's certainly an attempted coup, for sure,” Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt, told The Vermont Conversation.As Trump and billionaire Elon Musk tear through Washington firing thousands of federal workers and shuttering federal agencies, Balint has been drawn out of the halls of Congress to protest in the streets. She joined Congressional Democrats in front of the Department of Education to denounce taking “money away from our kids to give it to billionaires,” and protested in front of the Treasury Department decrying a “hostile takeover.”Speaking outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week, another agency that Trump is dismantling, Vermont’s second term congresswoman said she was there to “represent rural America” and that the CFPB “is protecting all of us from the kind of fraudsters and scammers that are in the White House right now.”Balint, who is the vice ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, has implored people to “tune in” to what Trump and Musk are doing. “Authoritarians win when we stop paying attention,” she said at the Treasury.Balint spoke with The Vermont Conversation while she was in Vermont this week.“These executive orders, these sweeping orders, many of which run afoul of federal law and the Constitution, it is difficult to look at what is happening and not come to the conclusion that in fact, they are trying to seize power away from everyday Americans, but also power away from the other two branches of government,” she said. “And we saw (Vice President) J.D. Vance this past week making statements that the president actually didn't need to listen to rulings of the court. And of course, if we don't have a checks and balances system here, then we don't have democracy as our founders envisioned it.”Balint said that her Republican colleagues have acquiesced to Trump’s power grab. “Some of them seem absolutely comfortable with this because they believe in the mission of a Christian nationalist vision for this country. Some of them go along with it because they are afraid of losing their own power.”Balint bristled at the suggestion that Democrats bear some responsibility for the political turmoil. “It sticks in my craw a little bit when people talk about the Democrats, because we are not a monolith.”Vermont’s lone congressional representative conceded that Democrats did not effectively address economic disparity in the runup to the 2024 election. “We have a disgusting, unconscionable wealth gap in this country, and I think that we should have been singularly focused on the needs of families who were struggling to make ends meet and continue to struggle.”Who will lead the resistance? “I understand the frustration and people are looking for one voice, and I think this is a time that is unprecedented. We are trying to fight a battle on so many different fronts right now, and so I'm really putting my head down in my two committees and figuring out how I can continue to push myself, my team, and my colleagues to be much more engaged with the people, because that is how we're going to right the ship right now. As you know, Democrats don't have the House, they don't have the Senate, they don't have the White House. We need three Republicans in the House to have a conscience right now, just three. So we're very focused on that.”“I can't tell people not to be angry or frustrated. I'm angry and frustrated,” said Balint. “I am absolutely frightened and chilled by where we are right now, and I'm not going to go along as if it's business as usual there.”Balint urged people to re-engage with politics. “I know people are exhausted. I understand why you just want to take care of you. But as much as we can encourage our friends and family, I always say just to check back in about what's happening because the stakes are incredibly high right now, and it's going to take all of us.

    36 min

  8. FEB 13

    One woman's odyssey from Africa to asylum in Vermont 

    Trudy fled her home in Africa in fear for her life. Her “crime” was supporting a candidate for president who was running against the incumbent leader. As her friends and family were being kidnapped, tortured and killed, Trudy decided to save herself and her 1 year old daughter. Seven years ago, she left her country. She arrived in the U.S., applied for and was granted political asylum, and is now a permanent resident in Vermont. Citing concerns about the safety of her relatives, Trudy asked to be identified by her first name.One of President Donald Trump’s first acts was to shut down asylum and refugee admissions, accusing migrants of staging an “invasion.” The American Civil Liberties Union has since filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of violating legal obligations to offer refuge to those fleeing persecution.“Those changes were introduced for the purpose of chilling the system, of scaring everyone into hiding, into retreat, into inaction, into panic, into self-deportation or self-harm,” said Jill Martin Diaz, an immigration attorney who is executive director of Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP), a legal services and advocacy organization. “Even though a lot of these executive actions will not survive scrutiny in court, just having passed them and created fear in our communities is already having a really chilling effect.”Martin Diaz explained that there have recently been a number of arrests in Vermont by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Agents have reportedly been showing up at supermarkets, gas stations and Western Union offices where migrant workers are known to frequent. VAAP has a form on its website to report ICE activity.Vermont is home to several thousand asylum seekers, according to Martin Diaz.Trudy explained that had she been sent back to her country, she considered giving up her daughter for adoption and then returning to "face the consequences.”“When I got asylum, I got my life back,” Trudy said. “You have no idea what it feels like to be in a state where you don't know. Because most people who leave their countries to come here don't leave because they want to. For example, for me, I had everything. I had a good job, I'd gone to school. I don't come from a very poor family. I came here because of security reasons for my child and for me.”Once she received asylum, “a whole burden fell off of me. I started my recovering process.”Trudy now works as a business office manager and her daughter is in third grade.“We are moving forward. We are looking towards the future. We are hopeful. We are happy. We are fine. We are really fine.”

    34 min
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    About

    The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont.

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