Susan Collins Is the Living Worst
The Bulwark · C · trust 36/100
The most despicable Republican is actually the “reasonable” Republican.
Jonathan V. Last October 7 ∙ Paid Upgrade to listen 14 minutes 1,173 549 139 October Surprise: 30% OFF Bulwark+ for a year. Upgrade now. (Photo: Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images) 1. Mainers Democrats are boat-racing the Republican in Georgia. North Carolina is a lock. Texas might get a Democratic senator. Kansas— Kansas —is in play.
And Susan Collins has a coin-flip chance to hold on in Maine.
I don’t know about you, but if I could pick just one Republican to lose this cycle—the one loss that would give me the most psychic, intellectual, moral satisfaction—it would be Collins.
At the debate last night, Troy Jackson attacked her for voting for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” in a procedural vote, noting that it cost Maine $3 billion in addition to cutting SNAP and heating benefits. 1
It’s so disappointing to hear Troy so misrepresent the facts. He knows that I voted against President Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill. I voted against it because it did cut the Medicaid program. But if I had not allowed the bill to go to the floor, I would never have been able to author the $50 billion fund to help rural health care. That is so important to the state of Maine. There are other provisions of that bill that keep taxes lower for middle-income taxpayers, and that is important as well. And he knows very well that I proposed paying for the rural health care fund by increasing the costs on everyone who — taxes for people making over $250,000 a year.
She voted to proceed with the BBB, knowing that it was bad legislation, because she knew that she could still vote against it in the final vote, since Republicans would have enough votes to pass it.
That is the last decade of Collins’s career, in miniature. She does what Trump needs her to do to enact his agenda, and sometimes casts a protest vote—but only if she can prearrange it to be meaningless.
(Don’t worry—I’m being sarcastic. We’re here to bury the old bat.)
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