“As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” was as soon as a maxim in U.S. politics, which means that it was at one time a bellwether for presidential elections.
Now it dangers turning into a backwater within the face of federal funds cuts imposed by President Donald Trump.
And Massachusetts will not be far behind. The Maine maxim may quickly learn, “As Maine goes, so goes Massachusetts” on the subject of related, however bigger, elimination or cutbacks in federal funding.
One other factor in widespread is that each Gov. Janet Mills of Maine and Gov. Maura Healey are each progressive Democrats who’re “standing up” to Trump it doesn’t matter what it prices their state and the individuals who dwell there.
Their stand is an ideal instance of self-indulgent politicians placing politics over widespread sense, notably on the subject of supporting males in girls’s sports activities, transgender points, DEI and different looney, left-wing progressive nonsense.
A Maine instance of what’s in retailer for Massachusetts was no-nonsense U.S. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi’s resolution final week to tug funding from Maine’s Division of Correction over a person transgendering into a girl being housed in a girls’s jail.
The particular person is serving a 40-year sentence for murdering his/her mother and father and the household canine.
“We are going to pull your funding, we are going to defend girls in jail, we are going to defend girls in sports activities, we are going to defend girls all through this nation,” Bondi stated, in reference to Mill’s cussed defiance of Trump’s mandate banning males from competing in girls’s sports activities.
Issues will likely be worse for Massachusetts as a result of, not solely is there may be extra at stake, however the assaults on Trump have by no means subsided even after he was elected in 2024 in a strong victory.
In truth, they’ve gotten worse as Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Legal professional Basic Andrea Campbell in a triple group offense appear to be competing over who can hate and taunt Trump extra.
Campbell, for example, seems out to interrupt Healey’s document of suing Trump some 100 occasions in 4 years when she was legal professional common.
Even earlier than he was sworn in as president the second time round, Campbell warned that she could be “on the entrance strains to guard our elementary rights” from Trump. She to date she has sued him 9 occasions.
Mayor Wu’s assaults on Trump are a bit extra comprehensible since she is operating for reelection and is relying on anti-Trump votes in Boston, irrespective of how a lot it can price the town by difficult Trump’s mandates, notably on unlawful immigration.
And whereas Gov. Healey, the third spoke within the girls’s progressive anti-Trump trifecta, has stated she would work with Trump at any time when attainable, the Trump administration will not be listening, doesn’t care or doesn’t imagine her.
That’s as a result of too many bridges have been burned.
At the same time as Trump pulled off a outstanding pause and change turnabout along with his tariff campaign, remoted China, and noticed the inventory market rise to superb heights, Healey and the Democrats had nothing good to say, besides to complain in regards to the “chaos” Trump precipitated.
Trump may educate Democrats a lesson in diplomacy.
Whereas he remoted China, our major adversary, from the remainder of the world and banged it with tariffs, he had sort issues to say about his “pal,” Communist Chinese language President Xi Jinping.
“XI is a great man and we’ll find yourself making a deal,” Trump stated. “Xi is a person who is aware of precisely what needs to be executed. He loves his nation.”
Distinction that to the names outstanding Democrats name Trump, their adversary.
They defiantly name him Hitler, a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator and a king after which anticipate him to proceed bathe them, their states, their cities and their pursuits with cash the way in which hapless Joe Biden did.
Healey, following typically accepted glad information that Trump had paused increased tariffs for many international locations, besides China, and that international locations have been lining up for a deal beneath Trump’s phrases, was nonetheless vital of him.
“We’re nonetheless left in a state of chaos and uncertainty,” she stated.
However her killer quote got here when she added, “On the finish of the day, I want any individual may attain the president and get him to cease, as a result of sufficient is sufficient.”
Governor, that’s your job.
Veteran political columnist Peter Lucas could be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
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