Before Vice President JD Vance arrived in Vermont for a ski trip with his family at Sugarbush Resort last weekend, Gov. Phil Scott issued a statement that read in part, “I hope Vermonters remember the vice president is here on a family trip with his young children and, while we may not always agree, we should be respectful. Please join me in welcoming them to Vermont.”

The mind reels. Respect is earned by honorable conduct. It apparently has escaped the governor’s notice that in the Trump disorganized crime family, as in the Mafia, “respect” means loyalty, obedience and silence and is enforced by fear. Just ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was sandbagged in the Oval Office last week by President Trump and Vance, his wannabe consigliere. At least Zelensky didn’t wake up with a horse’s head on his pillow, but the message was clear.

And as far as Vance’s family is concerned, they don’t get a free pass on the lift line of respect while the head of the household is busy helping to destroy the lives of thousands of families. Sorry, but that’s life, even for rich and privileged kids.

Given the political climate in Vermont, Vance’s visit can be seen as a deliberate and disrespectful provocation, not a family lark. Scott’s plea notwithstanding, more than 1,000 Vermonters turned out to pay their disrespects to Vance in the form of peaceful protests in the towns of Waitsfield and Warren during his visit. At Sugarbush itself, a spokesman told The Boston Globe that there had been “handfuls of protesters at the resort throughout the day, but all have been peaceful and none have been disruptive.”

Many of those who turned out were incensed — and rightly so — by the administration’s selling out of an ally in order to do business with the oligarchs in the Kremlin. To our mind, though, one of the most effective messages was contained in a post by Sugarbush ski conditions reporter Lucy Welch (before it was taken down). In it Welch connected the dots in a concrete way to demonstrate how the Trump administration constitutes an unprecedented threat on so many fronts.

For example, she mused that, “I’ve found that nothing cures a racing mind quite like skiing through the trees and stopping to take a deep breath of that fresh forest air. ... This fresh forest air is, more specifically, fresh National Forest air. Sugarbush operates on 1,745 acres of the Green Mountain National Forest. Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current administration, which is swiftly terminating the positions of dedicated employees who devote their lives to protecting the land we love, and to protecting us while we are enjoying that land.”

Welch went on from there to cover a lot more terrain, including the administration’s refusal to address climate change, which presents a real threat to the very existence of the ski industry in Vermont, one of the fastest warming states in the nation. And she wrapped things up in a way that should resonate with everybody who is losing heart at the state of the nation.

“We are living in a really scary and really serious time. What we do, or don’t do, matters. This whole spiel probably won’t change a whole lot, and I can only assume that I will be fired, but at least this will do even just a smidge more than shutting up and being a sheep.”

Indeed, Gov. Scott, respect, like charity, begins at home. And no self-respecting Vermonter owes a duty of respect to Trump or Vance, who themselves show no respect for democratic institutions, or for the great mass of Americans who did not vote for them.