Our politics has veered into a cuckoo world created by mindless spin. The latest example in Maine comes from Republican gubernatorial candidate David Jones.

On Tuesday night, Jones saw fit to remind the Lewiston City Council, quite unnecessarily, about the horror its community experienced in October 2023.

The Falmouth candidate, who has been scrounging around for support in the city, called the mass shooting by Robert Card, which took the lives of 18 people, one of the most horrible things to ever happen to Maine. Nobody would argue with that.

Jones went on to make one of the most regrettable comments I’ve heard from a politician.

Frustrated by the way community leaders and experts divided the nearly $7 million donated to assist in the city’s recovery, Jones told councilors that “what was even worse” than the shootings “was the misappropriation of funds” that poured in to help.

A funding choice, made openly after public consultation, worse than the shootings themselves? How absurd.

Slamming the allocation has become a talking point among GOP leaders, who have been spurred on by coverage by the conservative Maine Wire. State Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, the House minority leader, called it “really despicable” for nonprofits to have accepted any of the cash.

I’m sick of politicians turning our tragedy into lazy campaign rhetoric. It’s both wrongheaded and hurtful to a still-grieving Lewiston.

I’ve spoken to many of the people who survived the gunfire  that night, who fell injured or hid in the dark or dashed out a door as friends fell to the ground. I know the sense of terror and dread that kept my neighbors and friends locked in their homes for the two days that followed as police searched for the killer.

This was an event that traumatized not just Lewiston but a great many communities nearby as well.

People who saw what happened sent money. They couldn’t undo  what Robert Card had done, but perhaps they could support us in moving on. Money could at least pay hospital bills, replace lost income and fix whatever could be repaired.

Many nonprofits in the area spent an extraordinary amount of time and money helping community members regroup after this shattering experience. When the time came to distribute the donations that poured in, a group of experts and community leaders worked together to determine how to best use the money. They followed a sadly well-worn formula, one used by other similarly devastated places, as Jeff Dion, executive director of the National Compassion Fund, told me at the time.

In Lewiston, they distributed much of the money to the injured and to the families of those killed. Then they set some aside for the people who were at the scene when Card opened fire.

And they directed almost $2 million to help 29 nonprofit organizations that supported the community in the aftermath of the killings.

Amran Osman of Generational Noor, which got some of the funds, recently offered a compelling explanation for that decision. “Every single dollar went back into the community. To youth. To safety. To healing,” Noor said in a Facebook post.

“We created community safety forums, launched youth mentorship programs, provided internships and fellowships so young people could work in our office instead of being left vulnerable, hosted youth mental health workshops and youth-centered events, and expanded mental health support groups during a time of deep trauma,” because, Osman wrote, the impact of the shooting “was real, lasting and widespread — and we showed up.”

You don’t have to agree with the decision to include nonprofits in the funding, but you should not suggest it wasn’t anything other than a considered choice made openly and thoughtfully.

Politicians who rip at this wound aren’t interested in Lewiston’s healing. They’re putting their own ambitions ahead of the welfare of the state they want to lead.