If I hear the word “tribalism” one more time, I’m going to scream. What is a party to do when obscene amounts of dark money from libertarian billionaires heavily invested in fossil fuels goes toward bribing and threatening legislators on the opposing side, especially if those legislators tend to support environmental regulations or even breathe the words “climate change”?

What is a party to do when certain states favoring the opposing side do all in their power to make it disproportionately harder for minorities to vote?

What is a party to do when the opposing side passes a huge tax break for the wealthy that will bankrupt our country and guarantee that health care costs become unaffordable for even more of the rest of us? (Of course they will try to ease the national’s financial woes by gutting those socialistic programs, Medicare and Social Security.)

What is a party to do when the leader of the opposition, and, sadly, the leader of the free world, demonizes people fleeing poverty and oppression, mocks women, supports leaders with autocratic tendencies, ridicules our democratic friends, and spouts what fact-checkers determine to be an average of four falsehoods a day?

I’ll tell you what that party does. It raises money from regular folks like you and me — for as long as money is needed to buy a megaphone for free speech, this will be necessary. It gets out the vote, and it elects people who speak honestly, negotiate fairly, and will work for the good of all Americans.

Melanie Lanctot

Readfield