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Kate Mulrenin has lived and worked in Maine since 2001. Emily Kirk has owned a home in Maine since 1988 and retired to Maine in 2015. They live in Surry.
We fear that U.S. Rep. Golden, who saw little need for gun safety legislation until his hometown of Lewiston was the victim of a gun rampage, is once again minimizing a serious threat and slow-walking us into another catastrophic tragedy.
In a column recently published by the Bangor Daily News, Golden dismisses fears about Donald Trump’s aspirations, which we see as fascistic, as mere fear mongering. We urge him to read Project 2025, which lays out plans for Trump and strategy for completely transforming our democratic system of government. We believe it is not dissimilar to Adolf Hitler’s manifesto in “Mein Kampf.”
If Golden finds that comparison overly dramatic, we suggest he read just a few pages on Hitler’s concept of the big lie, eerily similar to Trump’s flooding the news with lies, including many of the words he said in last month’s debate. To quote from Mein Kampf: “the great masses of the people … more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big … they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others.”
Golden’s confidence in “the strength of our democracy” is admirable except that while he points to “hundreds of police officers [who] protected the democratic process” on Jan. 6, 2021, he fails to mention that four police officers died soon after by suicide and many more were injured in defending that process. How many is he prepared to send into action to protect himself and fellow members of Congress, and how many more may die in 2024 or 2025, while he is busy not clutching his pearls?
Golden proudly points to “members of Congress … from both parties, [who] certified the election,” without mentioning that eight U.S. senators and 139 U.S. representatives, who swore the same oath of allegiance as he did, nevertheless voted to overturn the election in 2020. What does his sanguine crystal ball report about what those and other oath breakers will do in 2025? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, not wishful thinking.
Golden, without mention of President Joe Biden’s role, takes credit for passing with members of Congress “the largest infrastructure package in U.S. history” and insulin price caps as well as successful negotiations with Big Pharma. Of course, it is the job of Congress to write laws but what will Golden do if Donald Trump and his Republican backers take control of the Department of Justice, FBI, Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commision, and Department of Homeland Security for the dedicated purpose of furthering the extremist-far right agenda? What if, as that agenda lays out, they initiate laws that lower income taxes in favor of tariffs? What if, as Trump has pledged, they round up immigrants in camps and start deportation proceedings en mass absent any sort of minimal due process? Will Golden “work with” Donald Trump if Trump rolls out a national ban on abortion, or a ban on contraceptives, or prosecutes perceived personal enemies, like FBI officials, journalists, and even former Rep. Liz Cheney?
With respect to working across the aisle, we remind Golden of the bipartisan deal concluded across the aisle for immigration reform which was then blown up by Donald Trump because he feared it might appear to give President Joe Biden a win. So much for working across the aisle for the good of Maine or the good of the country.
We think that anyone, including Golden, who believes it is possible to “hold [Trump] accountable” or “work with him” or “work independently” has either not been paying attention or is hopelessly naive, either way to their constituents’ peril. To us, this is exactly the same mistake made by those in positions of power in the military, corporations, and in the government in Germany prior to Hitler’s rise to power. They thought they could “control him at best” and “work with him” at the least.
Given our concerns for the survival of our democracy, we offer this column as a corrective to Golden and is neither meant as nor should be construed as an endorsement of any other candidate.