In a Sep. 8 column, Carl Szanton wrote about the merits of bipartisanship, urging Mainers to vote for Democrat Joe Biden for president and Republican Susan Collins for Senate. That might resonate in ordinary times but we are suffering now from a cancer that so pervades the Republican party its leaders are unable or unwilling to stand up to their despotic and irrational leader.

The cancer has spread to the point that the survival of our republic is in jeopardy. Collins is part of the Republican power structure that has enabled Trump and his minions to dismantle much of what is good and functional about our democracy.

At this point, Collins’ silence rises to the level of complicity. Nothing is less reversible about a president’s actions than his judicial appointments, and Collins has repeatedly failed us in this regard, especially in her indefensible support of Kavanaugh.

I will vote enthusiastically for Biden for president and Sara Gideon for Senate.

Carol Eisenberg
Peaks Island