Dexter Randall, a dairy farmer for Organic Valley and former Progressive Party member of the Vermont House of Representatives, hosts annual pig roasts on his farm that Bernie Sanders frequently attends.



“In the mid-80's when our friend Ronald Reagan dropped the support price for milk and then interest rates went through the roof, I was buried in debt, so got it from both corners. That's where Bernie came along into the picture,” Randall says. “We had a protest in 1990—there used to be a milk plant in Troy, there was about a hundred tractors—we surrounded the place. Of course people thought we were gonna blow the place up or whatever, and I could care less. Bernie was there and stood right beside me when I made a pitiful speech. … It was an emotional time because I was on the brink of losing everything.



“1986 is when I started getting to know Bernie, during the family farm crisis, when Willie Nelson had his first Farm Aid. So Bernie started coming on the scene. I met Bernie at a fundraiser. … If there was anything on the side of the people who were getting walked on, Bernie was always there, I don't care if there were 10 people or thousands.



“He told me probably 10 years ago on the farm, he said to me, 'Dexter if you think Montpelier is bad, that's nothing, Washington is just so corrupt."

Elijah Solomon Hurwitz