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Gordon L. Weil formerly wrote for the Washington Post and other newspapers, served on the U.S. Senate and EU staffs, headed Maine state agencies and was a Harpswell selectman.
Susan Collins now has her chance for her place in history.
No, it wouldn’t be from being elected six times to the U.S. Senate. It would arise from her taking a stand in favor of traditional American and Republican values. She should show courage and principle even if it brings crude denunciation by President Donald Trump.
Sen. Collins has prided herself on being a moderate Republican, true to the values of limited government, free enterprise with a commitment to equal rights and environmental protection. She comes from a Maine political family closely identified with that brand of Republicanism.
Donald Trump has stolen that party away from her. The Trump GOP has crushed her ambition to become a major influence on public policy in the Senate, while reducing her power by using the functionally stunted Republican Senate to rubber stamp his policies. The only use the GOP and its president seem to have for Collins is her vote to maintain his unquestioned control of the Senate.
Collins has made political sacrifices to advance the interests of the nation and Maine and her political career. When her integrity clashes with Trump’s excesses, she often temporizes by cloaking her positions in expedience or dubious superior knowledge, as compared with the rest of us, of how the system really works.
She occasionally breaks with Trump and his demands for blind loyalty, and that is to be commended. But she seldom either recruits support or casts the deciding vote. I see this as leadership by gesture, not by consistent and assertive application of her principles.
Maine and the country may be shortchanged by her approach. Now is the time that demands her vindicating the courage of her convictions as a moderate or being held accountable for having misled us about her principles.
She likes recalling the story of Sen. Margaret Chase Smith’s Declaration of Conscience, her public stand against Sen. Joe McCarthy, a Republican colleague intent on destroying political decency. That took courage, yet Smith made a partisan speech, making clear her belief that real Republicanism could defeat the Democrats without McCarthy’s vitriol.
Margaret Chase Smith ultimately lost re-election. But her electoral defeat is not what we remember. Her assured place in history derives from that single statement of her principles in defiance of her party.
The nation needs a functioning two-party system, operating through compromise. The majority party should dominate decision making, but it should accommodate views of the minority to promote a sense of unity of purpose.
Instead, we have a nation divided. The two sides appear beyond any hope of compromise. The war is on, not only for this presidential term, but for the indefinite future.
The Democrats are dazed by finding themselves in this situation and remain unable to pull themselves together with a coherent policy under strong leadership. While the times demand a bold alternative to Trump, they rely simply on the slim hope that opposition to him and his ego-based politics will produce their electoral victory.
The country not only needs the Democrats to find themselves but the recovery of the traditional Republican Party. If this is the great nation that we believe it is, that’s the result of the historical interaction of the two parties. The nation needs two strong political parties; neither now qualifies.
I believe Susan Collins can do more for her country by keeping the spark of Republicanism alive and giving it oxygen than by mere futile gestures. She may not turn the party around, but in the current crisis, she can play a strong, visible and independent role in preserving and promoting the traditional GOP.