I realize this is obvious to most but allow me to rant: At the core of Trump's base love for him is a simmering resentment over their mediocrity and gratitude for him making it permissible to be arrogant whilst mediocre. Everything in this cult can be traced back to that. (thread)

3 things folks have forgotten: --In 2021 Susan Collins pushed a censure plan to spare Trump impeachment tinyurl.com/4jn7ypwz --only voted to convict after it was clear it wouldn't pass --at the time said her vote didn't mean he should be barred from future office tinyurl.com/5n6s29k5 #MEpolitics

Susan Collins voted with Trump 95% of the time last year. It's more than she's voted with any president in any other year of her career 29 year Senate career. Every voting Mainer needs to know this. #MEpolitics

The Supreme Court are just lawyers for the RNC at this point. It's egregious, dangerous, and shameful. In the end, the forces of democracy will still prevail over these abuses; and Roberts will go down as the Chief who triggered Court reform by destroying its reputation. Umpires my ass.

The Roberts Court previously treated the “Purcell Principle” (can’t change electoral rules close to an election) as important. But that was in instances doing so advantaged Republicans. Faced with a situation where Republicans want to change rules while voting is already underway, the Court says OK.

Over at “One First,” I wrote about how the redistricting chaos we’re seeing in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia is something #SCOTUS *chose,* and how it belies both the entire purpose of the “Purcell principle” and the Court’s claim that it’s staying out of the political process:

this graduation speech moment is notable, and her amazed shock at having failed to read the room feels instructive. when you're inside the bubble, you think everybody else is. but everybody isn't.

“It is the prerogative of the government of Oceania to determine each day whether Eurasia or East Asia is the enemy, and congressional approval would unjustly constrain Big Brother.”

😕🇺🇸

The idea of "overturning" or "repealing" the 14th Amendment was a pretty fringe proposition until recently, but it wasn't unheard of. Obviously the former Confederates wanted to do that. But it was also a white nationalist talking point in the Cold War era. This is 1988.

This.

You don't get to this dark, dangerous moment without the complicity of people like Susan Collins. You just don't. #MEpolitics

Or maybe, just hear me out, Americans are paying more attention to the Supreme Court than they used to, and they understand the difference between this Court and earlier ones where justices respected precedent.

Americans are well aware of how the Supreme Court works and that it has been taken over by partisan fascists appointed by Republicans. Expand the court!

Maybe having a wife calling the Pentagon on J6 to see if Biden and Obama were really in gitmo or hanging the American flag upside down that same day were just taken way out of context 🤣

I love it when Republicans say things that just aren’t true in the hopes that someone will believe it

We're sure to hear in the coming months about how Susan Collins would have preferred Trump do this or that differently when it comes to Iran. But she handed a lit match to a gang of arsonists. You don't then get to complain when they burn the house down. #MEpolitics

Susan Collins ran a disgustingly antisemitic campaign in 2020 and she's back to invoking medieval anti-Jewish tropes -- in this case the scheming, power-mad Jew with a hand in everything. Maine media's determination to look the other way on this stuff amounts to complicity. #MEpolitics

Objective journalism language is fucking wild.

‘When You Think of It, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/o... Scariest thing I have read yet. And I read a lot of scary shit.

This piece really missed an opportunity to point out that Platner and Collins have different visions of what the government should do for Americans. It’s not just about moderation vs radicalism, it’s about who gets health care and who gets tax cuts #mepolitics www.pressherald.com/2026/05/02/g...

Also you could read a hundred Maine media stories on Susan Collins and ME-SEN and never learn that she voted with Trump 95% of the time last year -- more than she's voted with any president in any year. Bottling up this key, salient info is a conscious choice that outlets keep making. #MEpolitics

So much junk in Maine media as we move into a general election campaign: 1) Last few days multiple outlets asked Susan Collins if she fears Trump's unpopularity will drag her down. This is a suck-up question that implicitly absolves her of responsibility. Also she's similarly unpopular! #MEpolitics

Another piece of the the food history of the Reformation puzzle has dropped.

In essence, the Supreme Court legalized taxation without representation for people of color today and one can't say enough about how un-American and deeply wrong that is.

PICTURED: an easy guide on who gutted the Voting Rights Act

Use “Jim crow” when talking about the GOP and redistricting. It’s accurate, it’s easy to understand shorthand and it drives the right nuts.

Must watch.

This from @jamellebouie.net is fantastic. Expand SCOTUS, yes, but also strip it of the powers it has accrued to itself. Make it serve the people and the republic as was intended. Also, let me add: the Roberts Court delenda est youtu.be/SRzS61buXkQ?...

An “accessory.” Justice Marshall delivered it raw and real.

It should go without saying that if there's no pushback from Dems, Republicans will have even fewer incentives to agree to any sort of deescalation. Dems have tried offering the option of detente for many years. They've modeled this in states and passed federal legislation. All rebuffed.

💯

@rtraister.bsky.social offering sharper insight into ME-SEN than anything you'll see in Maine legacy media. (Or beltway media for that matter.) Below one salient chunk among many from this long conversation transcript. tinyurl.com/9ajbd4am #MEpolitics

The giddiness with which Republicans are vowing that black people will have no representation in Congress is something to behold. Tennessee is a 60-40 state, gerrymandered 8-1 GOP. Legislature is 80 percent GOP. Now they want MAGA-fy the state's last Dem. district, in 63 percent black Memphis.

If you're a liberal, it's probably not fun to live under a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS. But consider this: Hillary Clinton's email security and retention protocols at the State Department were subpar.

I am a lifelong restaurant business person. You 86 eggs Benedict when you run out of hollandaise sauce. It’s quite different than saying you will end a civilization if you run out of hollandaise sauce.

Whoopsie.

One of the “seven respected law professors” who think SCOTUS should end birthright citizenship

If you didn't catch the reference, Obama teared up describing the murder of teenaged Trayvon Martin by noting that if he'd had a son, he'd look like him. So naturally this racist piece of shit is mocking that.

"Pay no attention to the shuttered hospital behind the curtain." tinyurl.com/5hdwnbtb #MEpolitics

Happy birthday to Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925-2015) a Polish #paleobiologist, famous for a series of Polish-Mongolian expeditions she lead from 1963-1971 to the Gobi desert! 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci There she discovered dinosaurs including the Deinocheirus, plus she & team found the “Fighting Dinosaurs”

Finland gave every homeless person a house and within 6 months 85% had a job and were financially independent. Less crime, less hospital visits, less suffering and even including the cost of the house, LESS COST than the UK/USA method of abandoning them on the streets.

it is important to emphasize that this was *the point*. this was *intentional*. elon musk is a vicious white supremacist who thinks poor african children ought to die, so that the world can be whiter

In the middle of the night and over bipartisan opposition, Susan Collins cast the decisive vote to keep Trump's plan to funnel $70 billion to ICE on track. Two other Republicans voted against it. #MEpolitics

Credit where it's due to @pressherald.com for not tiptoeing around the news in this headline. #Mepolitics

💯. Wormtongue, though he probably thinks Sauruman when he looks in the mirror.

How much Americans have shelled out to Elon Musk through government contracts: $38 billion. How much Elon Musk made last year: $200+ billion How much Tesla paid in federal taxes last year: $0. Oligarchy is real. The system is rigged.

This IS the republicans party! Their cheating led to Dems challenging thru proper way to do things—a vote by the people!