More than three dozen leaders of Maine’s Republican Party signed a letter chastising Sen. Susan Collins for voting to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial. This fact alone says so much about the current state of the party itself. Apparently, to vote one’s conscience is not acceptable in these days of blind fealty to the party’s demagogue in chief.

Apparently, nothing Trump has ever done or will do could be bad enough to warrant holding him accountable. If there was any remaining doubt that the trend that Barry Goldwater observed over 50 years ago has finally reached its conclusion, there is no more. He saw his fellow conservatives abandoning the principles they once held dear in their quest for power.

To persist in protecting and defending Donald Trump, instead of the Constitution, after all that has happened, as all but seven of the Republican senators did in the impeachment trial, is beyond pathetic. It is tragic. No amount of rationalization, or deflection, or obfuscation or false equivalence can justify what Trump and his enablers have done.

And to those who still cannot see that Sen. Collins did the right thing, I can only say: Wake up! Your country’s future is on the line!

Stephen Pritz
Lyman