To the editor: A provocateur comes to Chester

On Saturday, Oct. 18, at the GOP counter-rally to Chester’s No Kings protest in Chester, Hank Poitras stood in front of about 60 people and did what he always does: sold himself.

If you don’t know him, Poitras runs a brand called Planet Hank out of Brattleboro — part podcast, part “news” channel, part traveling self-promotion tour. He’s the new chair of the Brattleboro Town Republican Committee and has spent the past few years filming people at their lowest — struggling with addiction, poverty and mental illness — and uploading those moments for clicks. He wraps it in talk about “transparency” and “citizen journalism,” but it’s exploitation. Even the Brattleboro Police Department — which he often films — issued a public statement making it clear they don’t collaborate with him and condemning his racist, divisive comments. Hank Poitras has a well-known history of racism, homophobia and discriminatory rhetoric.

Now he is trying to grow the brand beyond Brattleboro, testing new markets for outrage. During his speech in Chester, he mentioned his online platforms more times than he mentioned Vermont. He told the crowd where to find him, how to follow, how to “support the work.” He promised to take pictures with anyone who wanted one — a local meet-and-greet at the Fullerton Inn for his own media empire. He bragged about his “fans.”

He said he “cared too much about women” to allow legal prostitution, mocked electric-car drivers as “frogs that are supposed to be gay,” and waved off “LGBT issues and the Hamas war” as if they were trivial distractions. Between the punchlines, he called to the audience: “See you online. I need you to come defend me in the comments.”

That’s the business model laid bare. Every argument, every confrontation, every public stunt becomes raw material for content. Conflict equals engagement. Engagement equals clicks. Clicks equal sponsorships. The cruelty is the point — and the profit.

It shouldn’t be overlooked that Poitras has ties with Americans for Prosperity, one of the most powerful right-wing political networks in the country. Founded and financed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, AFP has spent decades lobbying against workers’ rights, environmental protections and public education funding, while pouring millions into electing candidates who promote deregulation and corporate interests. In Vermont, AFP has tried to rebrand itself as a “grassroots” group, but its agenda remains the same: weaken government, privatize public goods and amplify culture-war narratives that keep working people divided.

When someone like Poitras aligns himself with Americans for Prosperity, it’s not accidental. It’s strategic. AFP provides the ideological scaffolding and funding network for personalities like him to thrive. His brand of performative outrage serves as a local echo chamber for a national machine that profits when communities turn on themselves.

What Hank Poitras — or Planet Hank — is practicing is propaganda for profit: selling division, selling resentment, selling a version of masculinity and patriotism that depends on someone else being humiliated. He’s not building community; he’s mining it for content.

We should be honest about what this represents. Fascism doesn’t usually announce itself overnight. It seeps in through spectacle — through people who turn cruelty into entertainment, who dress contempt up as courage, who frame empathy as weakness and market rage as realism. Hank Poitras didn’t come to Chester to talk about policy or to listen. He came to convert attention into income and outrage into relevance.

The Chester crowd seemed unimpressed. A few clapped, but most looked underwhelmed. And that matters, because it shows something about Chester that he can’t fake or buy: People here still recognize the difference between a neighbor speaking in good faith and a provocateur chasing attention.

That’s why we should respond not with more outrage, but with more civility. Chester doesn’t need another provocateur looking to normalize cruelty or to peddle division. What we need is community care and community investment — the kind that’s built on seeing and supporting the humanity and decency in one another. We need to resist cynicism with generosity, and spectacle with sincerity.

We don’t have to buy what Planet Hank is selling.

After the rally, Poitras walked onto my yard, waited until I noticed him, and said, “How’d you like my speech?” When I didn’t answer, he grinned and said, “I’ll see you online then.” So I guess here I am.

Hank Poitras isn’t just selling himself — he’s selling the same toxin Donald Trump has spread across this country: The idea that cruelty is strength and chaos is power.

Don’t answer the door.

Anne Henshaw
Chester