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Dear Senator Susan Collins
I read a piece in the New York Times last week about you visiting Eastport for the 4th and trying to decide if you would run again. The article made a point that you had missed your “Margaret Chase Smith moment” when you went along with the confirmation of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh. It looks like you have a second chance to take a stand Senator. It seems to me that the decision should be based on being able to answer a simple question:
Do you have something to offer the citizens of Maine and more broadly do you have something to offer the citizens of the United States?
This past weekend the President of the United States made his most divisive, racist, and undemocratic set of remarks yet. Given what has come out of his mouth and what has gone into his Twitter account, this is truly saying something.
For me, a line has been crossed. It was best expressed in a CNN story this morning.
“The silence from Republicans Sunday about Trump’s tweets was near universal…”
If you, as an elected official do not use your voice, what are we to assume about your beliefs, your aims, your intent, and your character?
Surely, at this point, you have something to say? A lifetime of public service should not end like this. As the poet, T. S. Eliot said, “This is the way the world ends/not with a bang but with a whimper.”
Don’t go out with a whimper Senator. We deserve more and so do you. Insist on mutual respect. Honor the oath you took.
Yours,
Ben Weinberg.
