Jon Reisman

Maine and the country are divided — on Trump, gender, capitalism, freedom, and the fundamental understanding of those terms. Division in a polity with a healthy respect for freedom of speech can be productive, if uncomfortable. Division in a polity with a growing tolerance and acceptance of political violence is a prescription for disaster. Maine and the country look more like the latter to me.

Trump divides Maine and has done so for a decade. The higher-income, coastal-dominated 1st Congressional District has voted against Trump three times (backing Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris), while the lower-income, interior-dominated 2nd Congressional District has supported Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. 

The 2nd District’s awarding of electoral votes to Trump so deranged the Democrats of the 1st District that they passed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would award Maine’s electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, as opposed to who Mainers vote for (it has not gone into effect nationally yet). 

Governor Mills let it become law without her signature. She probably didn’t anticipate that Trump would win the national popular vote in 2024, and she probably wasn’t planning on running for Senate back then, but that gutless decision should haunt her in the primary (although Platner has so far evaded the issue), and the general election as well, should she make it that far (which I doubt). 

Her decision to run for Senate will stoke divisions in Maine to new heights, between the two Congressional districts and Democrats and Republicans. Interstate compacts require Congressional consent (so says Art. 10, section 3 of that fascist document, the U.S. Constitution), so Senator Collins may have something to say about it. Thank you, Janet. 

The whole gender identity/trans policy debate is yet another example of division intertwined with Mills, Trump, political parties, and geography. Two Downeast school boards have bravely spoken out, and I expect that critics will bemoan their exercise of transphobic fascism. I fear that our fraying commitment to freedom of speech is more than likely to devolve into threats and political violence. And we have a Biden judge's decision that an attempted homicide on a white conservative male Supreme Court Justice (Brett Kavanaugh) committed by a trans person deserves a light sentence.

If a mentally ill Republican heterosexual attempted to murder black liberal female Ketanji Brown Jackson, I doubt such mercy and compassion would (or should) be applied. Unfortunately, agreement on the unacceptability of political violence has joined the list of issues dividing us. If political violence becomes acceptable, we will become a nation of armed, divided camps.

Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are privately owned and controlled. I know that defining terms like “Capitalism,” “Democracy,” “Fascism,” and “Equity” is very likely to increase division, but as we have a “Democratic Socialist” running for the Senate and a “Communist” running for Mayor of New York, a center of capitalism. Critics of capitalism often bemoan its inequities and unfairness, while ignoring its efficiencies; however, the Democrats in Maine refuse to define equity. I think their acting definition is that “equity” is whatever we say it is, and we don’t need fascists demanding that we define our terms.

My view is pretty simple: Capitalism is tied very directly to freedom (see Milton Friedman). And socialism is not sustainable (see Margaret Thatcher and running out of other people’s money). That probably makes me a fascist, at least according to whatever definition the left is using today.

Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own, and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here or to him directly via email at [email protected].