Golden ignores the state of our democracy

To the Editor;

For now, I think U.S. Rep. Jared Golden has put the 2nd Congressional District House seat in the Democratic column. It’s no small feat in a district largely aligned with Donald Trump. But in a tumultuous presidential campaign, it’s presumptuous for Golden to call the race for Trump — and premature to abase himself before the man who would be king.

I think Golden’s blinkered boosterism ignores the state of democracy in the United States. Two markers for the erosion of democracy — election manipulation and executive aggrandizement — are personified by Trump and his enablers. The Supreme Court is overturning civil rights protections and the foundational principles of equal representation and equality before the law. In the wings, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a more than 800-page plan for gutting the executive branch in the first 180 days of the next Trump administration — replacing institutional expertise with Trump loyalists.

All this makes Golden’s “What, me worry?” opinion even more worrisome.

Annlinn Kruger

Bar Harbor