If I were really honest (!?), I’d confess my delight. Susan Collins lost in Maine and it felt like the eight days of Chanukah wrapped into one. During Trump 1.0 I used to write her letters exploding with bilious, fulminating anger. How could she hoist Kavanaugh over the finish line when it was clear that he would vote against reproductive freedom? Five minutes later he did exactly that, trashing decades of settled law.
Things actually got worse in Trump’s second term. Collins voted to fund ICE for the whole of his presidency, supporting the agency that killed Pretti and Good. She supported the confirmation of Gabbard, Kennedy, and Patel, creating the cabinet of clowns that now rule the country.
Yet she would have us believe that she was a principled moderate. My read is that she colluded with her unscrupulous party to pander to the progressive voters of Maine only when it would not affect the outcome of a vote. That was one of the issues foregrounded in her debates. Asked to identify a single case where she blocked her party from doing real damage, her tongue was suddenly seized by paralysis. So much for the brave and virtuous Susan Collins.
But even the worst nightmares finally come to an end. The unalterable truism of American politics is supposedly that the electorate privileges its pocketbook. We vote for the people who can deliver what we need, which is usually some combination of public works and pocket money. The erosion of spending power was certainly a factor in this election as Democrats hammered on the question of affordability.
But what’s more interesting to me is that Maine turned on Collins, one of the most effective pork barrel legislators in Congress. Term after term, decade after decade, she brought dollars to Maine for fire stations, boat landings, road salt, and treatment centers. But this time around, voters said no, choosing in her place a doughy state legislator without a particle of charisma. Economics certainly had something to do with it as Mainers suffered from Trump’s asinine tariffs. But I would like to think that they jettisoned Collins on principle. They were sick of her reliable support for Trump and the theater of her so-called moderation.
Meanwhile, I’m experiencing a surge of schadenfreude. It drove me crazy to watch Collins pretend that she agonized over votes when she delivered herself to Trump 98% of the time. That number has stuck in my throat for years. Troy Jackson will be a much better senator.