Collins must keep Trump accountable
I want to thank Sen. Susan Collins for her excellent service to the people of Maine these many years. U.S. citizens will be at a huge juncture in our national political scene in a few weeks, when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in. But he shouldn’t be in this place. I hope Collins’ sense of seeking truth, justice and compassion will not allow Trump to keep telling lies, acting like a schoolyard bully and being just plain mean.
He is not a Republican. He is his own man, and he will do whatever it takes to come out on top and to be the loudest mouth at the party. Before he has even been sworn in he has managed to tick off China, win praise from Vladimir Putin, ask questions about who has been involved with climate change research at the Department of Energy and nominate foxes to the hen houses at the departments of Interior and State and the Environmental Protection Agency. He’s considering asking NASA not to study the Earth’s climate any longer. He’s even called into question the CIA’s intelligence about Russia’s interference in the presidential election to help him win.
Collins must keep him accountable, and she must not let him dismantle all of the good environmental legislation enacted since 1964. Collins must keep Trump from ruining our country as the least qualified person for the most important job in the world. She should ask him the tough questions. She must not let him get away with his simple, flippant, meaningless and disrespectful answers. She must hold his feet to the fire of truth and justice.
Rick Freimuth
Penobscot
What happened to America?
The world is in such a mess and with the world getting smaller, there are no safe places. At one time, America was the place to look up to and to feel safe. It was a country of rules that was fair to all but no more. Now it is a place of destruction, murder and lies.
Now an evil and dangerous man by the name of Donald Trump is running this show right here in America. What happened? We had the best country on earth, with all others looking up to us. But no more. We have lost just about all we have worked so hard for. Our young men and women in the service died and suffered for what? This one man will destroy America.
What happened to America to allow this to happen?
Eugene Bowden
Bucksport
Abolish the Electoral College
The Electoral College was created at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer 1787 because Alexander Hamilton, together with a majority of the Founding Fathers, was distrustful of direct democracy. In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton wrote that “the [Electoral College] process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
Hamilton went on to worry that men possessing “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity,” could be elected by popular vote of the people. But with the safeguard of “an intermediate body of electors,” comprising “men most capable of analyzing the qualities” that would make a qualified president, candidates of low intrigue would be prevented from taking the country’s highest office.
The election of Donald Trump, an ignorant demagogue temperamentally unqualified for any elective office, much less the presidency of the United States, must have caused Hamilton to turn over in his grave.
The Electoral College has drastically failed in 2016. Hillary Clinton won more than 2.8 million more votes than Trump, but failed to win the presidency, making this by far the most undemocratic election in American history.
For the sake of democracy and the future of the republic, it is time to abolish the Electoral College.
Phil Locke
Bangor