Susan Collins hands Trump the 50th vote against free and fair elections
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/susan-collins-hands-trump-the-50th-vote-against-free-and-fair-elections/Open linkView original on lemmy.world494
Comments98https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/susan-collins-hands-trump-the-50th-vote-against-free-and-fair-elections/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Man, I'll never fully understand what the fuck is wrong with Maine residents and their obsession with her.
I don't know the situation in Maine, but being a deciding vote usually means you get a lot of concessions. It's quite possible Maine residents get what they want from her via these concessions.
So bribery. Maine residents are okay with immoral national politics, as long as they get their kickbacks for making it happen.
I'm thinking concessions for being the deciding vote should not be a thing.
I remember reading a study years ago that said people are more likely to support a leader who "plays dirty" because 1) they figure other leaders are doing the same so they must level the playing field, and 2) they can turn a blind eye to the misdeeds because it's the leader doing it, not the voters.
What does someone in Maine get out of this? Maybe Collins is getting shit for it but the average person is getting fucked.
I don't know this bill specifically, but bills have a lot of weird unrelated shit tacked onto them. Sometimes that stuff is state-specific stuff. There have been lots of cases where senators have opposed a bill but changed their tune after something specifically for their state was added. They can then brag about these wins during primaries.
Maybe we're looking for nuance where there isn't any, and the majority of Maine residents are just hateful and racist.
Source: they keep electing Susan Collins
I'd be surprised if there aren't candidates more hateful and racist on the primary ballot.
Maine residents are, as a whole, very nice people. Certainly a lot friendlier as a population than many other states I've spent time in. Calling them hateful and racist based purely on (by your own admission) their voting records is like saying the majority of US residents are MAGA because Trump got elected.
Source: Previously lived there for 26 years.
Neat. I live in a Midwestern state, and people here are so nice and friendly there's an expression about it.
We're also obviously hateful and racist though, because we keep voting for Trump and sending hateful, racist Republicans to Congress.
And?
You aren't even from here australian lol, just shut up and listen like you're supposed to
I don’t know, but Asheville NC got the Blue Ridge Parkway because their representative was the last vote needed for Social Security.
Well, if you're a fascist...
Not sure I’d give much credit to susie on this one. It’s more than likely filling her pockets.
That's the answer right there. They're voting for her because they like that she's lining her own pockets.
I’m not suggesting residents of Maine are voting for her to line pockets. They seem to vote for her for whatever reason makes sense to them. She continues to believe certain people “have learned their lesson” and will do the honorable thing.
"I know who this is, but I don't know who that is. People I know must be better."
This was why I was fucking bummed when Biden got into the Democratic primary in '19. Name recognition >>> Younger, better options.
People are stupid.
I call it the mitigating factor since so many things don't make sense until we include it.
What this shit headline DOESN'T say is that this passing would require 60 votes, not a simple majority. Unless the GOP nukes the filibuster, which it doesn't seem like many GOP-fuckwits like, they still won't have the required votes to pass this.
Still, this is sobering that they have her 50th vote, and couch-fucker Vance's "have you even said thank you once" 51st vote, if it were truly a tie breaker scenario.
I think it's more about calling her out.
Fair but it's clickbait, which is shitty
How is it clickbait? It literally says the thing in the title
Writing "the 50th vote" instead of "another vote" or even "a 50th vote" implies that specific vote is more important, like reaching a threshold. At least that's how I see it.
Correct.
The implication is that it's guaranteed to pass with her vote. That is the clickbait.
What makes you think the Dems will filibuster? So far Schumer has capitulated every single time.
Not even Schumer is stupid enough to cave to "I lose my job forever."
That's not how the filibuster works. It only takes one person to do it. It's take 60 to vote against it to stop it from being done by that one person. Even Schumer isn't dumb enough to call the dems to vote against them doing their own thing.
A yes surely the rule of process that they can get rid of at any time will save us
The social contract is broken.
Focus on your community and resisting fascism.
I disagree I think we all need to vocalize our dissent as loudly as possible.
But my community is full of people who demonstrated on November 5th 2024 that they are favor of or ambivalent to fascism.
This is why no Republican should be allowed into office, ever.
Even the "moderate" ones will betray America.
From the article.
She's as moderate as Mitch McConnell
Both of our parties are unconstitutional private organizations, and both have been bought long before we were born
Democrats won't save you
Meanwhile, Republicans are actively trying to kill you. Both sidesism only makes sense when both are equivalent threats, which is clearly not the fucking case.
Oh the one Nazi who sometimes isn't a Nazi did a Nazi thing? Shocked.
I mean, when has she actually done something good? Even in the article they say she votes with Trump 98% of the time (more than Rand Paul).
Literally never. For some reason she has a reputation as being the left leaning Nazi tho
Maine lugging around a record number of "Fell For It Again" awards with that POS senator.
But better still is anyone who believed the "You need 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate" line we've been swallowing since Clinton.
I'm not American so I'm probably missing something, but isn't this a Republican who votes almost exclusively along party lines? So, a case of people getting exactly what they voted for?
I'm not saying she's not a despicable arsehole, but it doesn't seem like she hides it.
Partisanship is such a driving force in our politics that even someone who only bucks their party 4% of the time is considered "bipartisan". I've seen reports in the media calling a vote "bipartisan" if it only gets two or three votes from the other side.
And yes, it depends on that person's reputation. Since Collins is seen as a moderate, all it takes is her support on a bill to call it "bipartisan". OTOH, Senator Rand Paul frequently votes against the Republican party line, but only because he is a batshit crazy libertarian. He can vote against a Republican bill, and nobody calls that "bipartisan", I guess because both sides think he's nuts.
So the news here is "Rebellious Republican didn't rebel against Republican bill"?
Except "rebellious" means "still toes the line 96% of the time" and "Republican bill" means "whatever fucked up turd of an idea Trumps handlers have evacuated through that festering mouth-hole in his face"?
Yes, you understand that correctly. All I can say is that it wasn't always this way.
I'm well aware - I have a pretty comprehensive understanding of American political history, albeit entirely gleaned from Day of the Tentacle, The Wire, and that Obama "HOPE" poster.
She's one of a few the Republicans have had strategically vote against the party when her vote wasn't needed to pass a bill. Basically her, Murkowski, and for a while McCain, until he really bucked the party with the ACA vote and became a pariah until his death.
The strategy being "pretend you're not an evil fuckface to get more votes", presumably?
Yes, in competitive states, they when by playing the reasonable centrist that swears they are willing to stand up to their party...
Never actually doing so when it could actually matter.
Collins regularly advertises herself as a moderate and makes a big show of complaining about the rest of the party to the media.
Even Mitch McConnell didn't vote for this thing.
Fuck this old crone. Every one of these old establishment dems like schumer, pelosi and collins need to fucking die already. If you're gonna sit in that seat and deny your constituents true representation until you die, then you might as well get it over with.
Thanks for literally nothing, you useless, feckless coward.
No argument about Schumer, et al. But Collins isn't one of them. She's, in fact, part of the actual pedocon party.
She's a Repedolican, but I can see why you're confused because everyone likes to pretend she's somehow less extreme than the other ones. She's not, just puts on a little show of "being concerned" about things, but always votes right along with the rest of them.
Pelosi retired
I'm sure she thinks he's learned his lesson.
That line made it 100% clear to me that she was operating in bad faith. Nobody is that ignorant, much less a politician with decades of experience.
She knows it gives her the best chance of being re-elected.
Do these people think they're going live forever? Something twists the minds of everyone who gains power. They become absolutely incapable of giving it up voluntarily.
Truly - What do they care about what happens after they're dead? .. They'll be dead.
They have no empathy towards anyone who will suffer the consequences because they won't have to be the ones to deal with the fallout. "Fuck you, I got mine" is their entire strategy.
A rotten cunt since the day she was born.
I really hate that lady.
She's about to be voted out by Planter if the overwhelming polls are even barely accurate.
Me too, Mulder, me too..
Collins is a sack of shit and must be another Russian asset.
jfc she can fuck off and die already
Perfect tombstone quote when this decrepit thing passes.
In a rare, unprecedented, political moment: republicans banned together to do something truly deplorable.
I wish it was fucking rare, but they've been doing this shit at least 2 or 3 times a year for my entire lifetime.
I know it was a joke, they always vote as a block because they have no independent thoughts.
Of course she did...
Where filibuster?
Anyways, this is only 20 minutes into the 2nd episode of the Season 2026 of House of Cards and the plot is already getting wilder and wilder. Can't wait till what the writers come up with in Season 2028 Episode 11...
The Lafayette Square Coup?
"if it came to a vote" Filibuster still exists
No shit how else was she going to keep her seat in the Senate lol
Most of the party wouldn't risk primarying her in this environment. The NRSC knows no other Republican has a shot of winning the general, and they've definitely made that clear to the idiot in chief, who probably now understands there's a reasonable chance that the Senate flips. I don't think there's any political calculation here; she's being a dick because that's what she is.
So last November the republicans ran a 'fair voting' law in Maine and it got voted down by 65% of the state. Susan collins seat is at risk indeed. I see a lot of Graham Planter signs in the place of the old Trump signs. I think they are shitting a brick about midterms and this law is a political calculation to do what ever they need to do to skew the election in her favor. At this point I think she might just do it for the head lines. She's always contemplating until last minute when she always votes with her voting block.
She's certainly losing that seat, to be fair.
She was re elected even after the "He learned his lesson." ridiculousness. Americans are the problem.
nothings certain. Im hoping mills and collins flop and the young populist dude sweeps it. I would not be surprised at all to see Susan win a fair election or a rigged election. I would be pleased if she didn't.
Collin’s you cunt!
God I hate this broad
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck...
Though to be fair, I’m sure she is very concerned
"He's learned his lesson".
Not learning lessons has kinda been his thing. She goes in the ditch next to the rest of them.
add to the list of collaborators. the regime will fall, and some of these dinosaurs will be still living. there must be a reckoning.
I read save act will block a lot more republican women from voting than anyone else because married democrat women are far more likely to own a passport
Leopards start circling, ready for a feast
I also saw a stat that democratic women are less likely to be married in the first place.
Citation: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-growing-link-between-marriage-fertility-and-partisanship
This is literally a discussion Bout ho elections aren't free and fair. We did not vote for this and the vast majority of Americans, in a true democratic election (not a representative democracy), would stop this from ever passing. But that isn't how we operate. Instead we vote for people who vote on our behalf and we vote for law makers who make laws on our behalf and who vote on those laws. And we somehow just have to trust the representatives to actually represent us. But there's no way in hell that is going to always work.
"Always going to work" = never works
Voter support for higher minimum wage is around 70%. Support for universal healthcare and abortion is over 60%. Support for term limits is over 70%. And so on.
Our government is pay-for-play, and the voters can't pay... but Musk and Amazon and the rest have some discretionary income to share with the politicians.
False. Republicants voted for this.
Susan "I killed abortion rights" Collins
Leadership of our parties are all old vultures like this hag, who has sat in office for THIRTY YEARS
I’m getting pretty old and we have no representation. These are all treasonous traitors who represent corporations, oligarchs and Israel. We will not be able to vote our way out of this.
How many times do this rogue Democrats have to buck the party line to work with the fascists before we actually get some party discipline? Yes, I get the whole "big tent party" thing, but there should be a point (which has long since and repeatedly been passed) where the party closes ranks and starts either censuring these members in a meaningful way, like a monetary fine or loss of some campaign funds or something, and escalate right up to expelling them from the party and making them campaign openly as the republicans they really are.
I'm not saying they should be policing every single action of them, but when you have assholes like Joe Manchon or Susan Collins, who tank key pieces of legislation that represent major planks of the party or directly work against the interests of the constituents, it shouldn't be up to grass roots movements to primary these bastards, much to frequently do so against the DNC continuing to back them. They should already be gone based on their part misdeeds, and the party should be proactive in this.
Wut.
Susan Collins IS NOT A DEMOCRAT. She is a REPUBLICAN. I don't mean that she's a DINO, she's literally a Republican.
You know what? That's all on me. For some dumb reason, I had it in my head that she was a Democrat. I'll just go put away my pitchfork now.