The only reason Susan Collins has an approval rate in the 30s is older generations’ leftover goodwill from her first 20 years in office. Like many young people, I came into real political consciousness with the 2016 presidential election. At no point since then has Susan Collins done anything to earn the youth vote.

Young voters do not know “Susan Collins the moderate.” Less than halfway through Donald Trump’s first term, Collins betrayed one of her most important causes – the right to an abortion – by confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, she cast a critical vote to acquit Trump of the charge of abuse of power, a trespass he practically committed in public! Since then, she has done nothing but express her disappointment in Trump while also enabling his self-serving, spiteful and increasingly fascistic acts.

To be fair, Collins doesn’t exactly seem like she’s trying to win us over. Collins probably thinks young Mainers lack the passion or the numbers to make a difference in the election, so she doesn’t even bother. She could not be more wrong.

As communications director of NextGen Maine, I talk every day to young voters, students, volunteers and activists who have watched Collins’ decline from independent-thinking Republican to spineless Republican puppet, and I don’t hear complacency or apathy. To paraphrase a movie Collins might remember from her youth, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not gonna take it anymore.

Elizabeth Rosen
Portland

Copy the Story Link