Editor’s Note: Today’s essay is a guest article by Kelly Cummings of Fletcher, Vermont. It appeared originally as an op-ed piece in the St. Albans Messenger.
If you keep on doing what you've always done, you keep on getting what you've always got.
Let’s be honest, things are bad for the average, everyday, regular person. We can feel it in our gut. Gas prices, food prices, healthcare prices, housing prices and childcare prices, just to name a few, are costing us more than we can afford to pay. It’s as if the walls are closing in on us. Where’s the hope? Where’s the possibility? Where are those boots we have always been told we should pull up by their straps? Do we even matter anymore? Think about it. Do we?
In a world that is being driven by greed and power, at any cost to the average, everyday, regular person, we don’t stand a chance if we continue to accept the status quo approach. It is exactly what got us to where we are now.
Let’s Try Something Different
But are we brave enough to try something different? The greedy and powerful are betting—maybe even on Polymarket or Kalshi—that we are not. They figure we will fall in line, like we always do, because we will inevitably fall for the same old shtick. The same old scare tactics. The same old lies. The same old middle ground comfort that, for some reason, we believe will save us, help us and surely change things for the better. But it hasn’t. And it won’t, because pretend comfort doesn’t pay our bills, it doesn’t help us raise our children and it will not help us afford healthcare when we get sick.
It is time for a change. It is time, now more than ever, for us to be brave and bold and take that chance on real substantial change, no longer accepting - the “impossible to do” excuses. We know where we’re headed if we don’t. We know it’s most likely going to be bleak and hard and hopeless.
And if you haven’t figured that out by now, do a little research. Start paying attention. Be curious and ask questions. Not only have our leaders been suffering from a failure of imagination but so too have we. The time to expect and demand more from our leaders is now. We must no longer be appeased with old ideas and accepting of performative talk that is hollow and lazy.
This is important because our very lives and livelihoods may depend on it. It is now possible to imagine we may not survive the status quo much longer, the burden is already too heavy and getting heavier. But, it is also just as possible to imagine a different kind of future for ourselves and our children, if we dare. And dare we should. Dare we must. This is our chance.
Enter Amanda Janoo. Amanda is running to be the next governor of Vermont. Have you gone to her website janooforvt.com or maybe gone to one of her many events around the state? If you haven’t you should. She’s not the status quo and is not being supported by any status quo PACs like her opponent in the primary election, Aly Richards. And she’s not afraid to imagine a better future for Vermont.
Amanda is soft spoken and humble, but make no mistake about it, she is bold and brave and wants to roll up her sleeves and really get to work for us. She’s an economist, she’s smart, and I would also add a visionary. She’s ambitious, but her ambition is not for herself, it is for us.
Believe in the Possible
Imagine it, ambition for us. Ambition to improve the lives and well being of Vermonters. Wait, what? That’s backwards. Exactly, it is.
Some will tell you her ideas are not status quo enough or even pixie dust. I disagree with pixie dust because we know that any idea any of us have ever had, a desire to start a business, to get a degree, to start a family, began with our ability to first imagine it, then to believe it possible, then to really want to make it happen and then do just that.
We know that we as individuals have been able to accomplish the best things in our lives because of our own belief that they were possible. Don’t let The Established, once again, convince you otherwise. Not this time. They are going to try really hard, like they’ve always done, to convince you the status quo is the way to go. Just remember that’s what we have now and have had, for a very long time. Ask yourself, how has the status quo served you? It’s exactly what has brought us unaffordable healthcare, an unaffordable housing crisis and so many more things that keep us needing and yearning for just the basics of a life lived, for a little break - we’re tired.
It’s Time to Save Ourselves
Here’s the thing, we are going to have to save ourselves. We just are. We can start by choosing the best, out of the box and ambitious visionary leader to lead us. A leader who isn’t afraid to lead us or for that matter, to lead the legislators. A leader who sees us and will bring a determined heartfelt desire and new perspective to start solving some of our very old problems. A leader who has a plan on how to do it with Vermonter’s quality of life as her first priority.
I believe Democratic candidate Amanda Janoo is that leader and I will be casting my vote in the August 11th primary election for her. I hope you will too.
It’s time to stop doing what we’ve always done so we can stop getting what we’ve always got.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about enough of the status quo that never seems to really fix anything.
What happens next is up to us.
Kelly Cummings, Fletcher, Vermont