Dear Editor:

This presidential election is turning out to be a shootout over two contrary visions of America with Senator Susan Collins caught in the crossfire. President Trump sees an America where, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to our doorstep,” an America that fosters innovators and entrepreneurs. The Democrats see an America flawed at its conception, racist, and past its prime. They see their job as managing America’s decline. But there’s money to be made in the process. The trick has been to target a company or industry, like coal. Demonize it, tax it, strangle it with regulations, and deny the industry a market for its product. As Obama famously said, “Go ahead. Build a coal fired electric plant, and we’ll bankrupt you.” Enter the hedge-fund operators who swoop in like vultures to snap up the company’s assets at fire sale prices. “Smash and grab,” it was called, like the thief who sees a wallet on the car seat, smashes the window and flees with the wallet.

Basically, smash and grab is a bet against America. It is the basis of the massive wealth amassed by hedge-fund operators George Soros and Tom Steyers whose winnings fund Majority Forward and Sara Gideon’s ad campaign. Senator Collins put herself in the crosshairs with her principled Senate vote confirming Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, even rejecting the left’s attempt to bribe her with $4 million to vote not to confirm.

The country is literally on fire, every institution is under siege, and the internationalists are selling us out for an illusory global utopia. Never have we needed common sense and level headed, seasoned leadership in Congress more than now. In Senator Collins we have a tried and proven legislator of inestimable worth. 

David Reed

West Rockport