I worked on my first Republican campaign in 1968 and was a delegate in Washington state in 1980. I’ve voted for Susan Collins in the past; I cannot do so again. She’s no longer moderate. She’s followed her party increasingly to the authoritarian, reality-denying right. She touts her “bipartisanship” when all she does anymore is smile occasionally at Democrats.

She wants us to forget she voted for Brett Kavanaugh to join the Supreme Court, even after former Justice John Paul Stevens declared him unfit. She’s voted for 188 far-right federal judges who’ve won mostly party-line votes, including nominees deemed “unqualified” by the American Bar Association; she only voted against the party line when it wouldn’t matter. She cast the deciding vote for Jonathan Kobes, one of those “unqualified” appointees, now a federal judge for life, though according to the ABA he had no demonstrated understanding of complex legal issues or the necessary writing ability.

She’s remained silent as the president has repeatedly violated the spirit and letter of the law, separating refugee children from their parents, spouting false medical information about COVID, and even sending anonymous storm troopers to American cities to bully peaceful protesters.

Most egregious is that she has said nothing about the president’s total lack of response to the intelligence briefing he received in February that a Russian military intelligence unit offered and paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. As former Navy SEAL Dan Barkhuff puts it, “Trump is not fit to be our commander-in-chief.” This is why many veterans and other lifetime Republicans are opposing Trump’s re-election in November.

Trump needs to be removed from office in November before he destroys America. Collins, one of his key enablers, needs to follow him out the door into retirement.

 

Robert Nelson

Clinton


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