The Day We Discovered the Real Susan Collins

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

Today, Sen. Susan Collins decided, in a long, unwieldy speech (that I watched in its entirety) that it was time to finally come clean on something I had long figured she would do: back Brett Kavanaugh. Sen. Collins blamed the Democrats, protesters, the media, and outside interest groups who were against Kavanaugh (never mind the millions in dark money that was also spent in favor of Kavanaugh, which apparently she had no problem with), and found only cursory time for Christine Ford, claiming to be her ally and advocate all the while putting the man who assaulted her into a lifetime position on the Supreme Court.  She claimed that Brett Kavanugh was in fact a David Souter in disguise, and that he would not soon use his near-absolute power over the country as a member of our highest-court to tear down gay marriage, women's rights, labor laws, and environmental regulations, despite threatening, and I quote "what goes around comes around" while viciously attacking Bill and Hillary Clinton for seemingly no apparent reason.  There's no evidence of this, and Susan Collins knew it, preemptively saying "I told you so" because she wouldn't be able to say it when reality proved her wrong.  Collins, a supposedly pro-choice Republican, sold out women everywhere in a 40-minute speech on the Senate floor.  She wanted everything to be pleasant and orderly, and bemoaned a process that had become "too partisan."

There's a lot of ways to take today, and it's fair to point out that Susan Collins won't be alone when she casts one of 51 votes for Brett Kavanaugh tomorrow.  She'll be joined by 49 of her fellow Republicans and Joe Manchin, who (like a coward) waited until he had the cover of Collins to announce he would vote for Kavanaugh, not wanting to be the deciding vote (it seems preposterous to think he wasn't also sitting on a press release sending Kavanaugh packing if that's what Susan Collins had wanted, and while I'd still vote for him if I lived in West Virginia because he's a vote against McConnell, I'd never give so much as a dime to his reelection campaign).  And there's a lot of angles to take an article today, pointing out the hypocrisy of Collins' speech (judicial opponents were never more political than when Mitch McConnell forced Merrick Garland to endure a year of sitting around because a black man had appointed him), or simply talk about what this means for the midterms, for the future of the country, for the Supreme Court in general.

But I want to talk about Susan Collins herself, because today was the most important and most lasting day of her long political career.  This is what she'll be remembered for when history recalls her four terms in the Senate (it could be more, but one has to wonder if she'll retire rather than face the first uncertain election she's endured in over twenty years), and I really want it to soak in what she did today.  Because while she has sponsored dozens of bills through the years and has never missed a vote in the Senate, it's impossible to deny the impact she had on the country today, and how she profoundly changed her legacy and our world.

It didn't have to be that way.  Collins was always, in my opinion, the other senator from Maine.  Her fellow senator Olympia Snowe, generally the leader on major issues, always was running first, ahead of her fellow senator, and while they voted in near lock-step, Collins was always a touch more conservative and because she didn't have the same pedigree (Snowe was the first woman to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress, plus she was also a former First Lady of Maine), was frequently ignored.  During the ACA debates, it was Snowe who was regularly courted by the Obama administration while Collins was largely dismissed as a lost cause in hopes of getting bipartisan support.  The two had a bitter rivalry (not uncommon for senators from the same state), but Collins seemed to revel in the attention and spotlight that occurred without Snowe in her way.  Senators of both party regularly praise her, and she has taken to her position as a key vote on major legislation in recent years.

The problem, here, is that without Snowe in the Senate alongside her, Collins' moderate credentials have taken a major hit in recent years.  The woman who once voted against DADT, supported gay marriage and Planned Parenthood, has spent the past two years regularly voting for judges that will work to undermine such legislation.  Just last year, she voted for John K. Bush, a man who as recently as 2005 was still using the word "faggot," supported the Birther movement, and compared abortion to slavery.  Collins was "concerned" but voted for him just like she did Brett Kavanaugh (should be noted that Bush was a bridge even too far for Joe Manchin, who voted no on his confirmation).

But it was today, on the Senate floor, that we saw her undermine her entire career, all of the admitted good she had done in the past despite a checkered record.  Standing on the Senate floor, she admonished protesters trying to stand up for their rights against Kavanaugh, misrepresenting his judicial record to make him seem more palatable.  These are protesters who espouse things that Collins has spent a career claiming to care about, women's rights and gay rights and voting rights, but to no avail.  She repeated claims that would have felt more comfortable in the mouth of Orrin Hatch or Chuck Grassley.  For twenty minutes she ripped into progressive ideals as if there was no logical way that one could support Kavanaugh, and claimed to support & believe Christine Ford while also saying she'd vote for her assaulter.  I was stunned that Collins, frequently easy to mock with her "concern" but someone who has shown such care in the past to try and bridge divides, bitterly stuck a knife into the process, claiming it was the Democrats' fault that Christine Ford was assaulted and that we had to endure this national nightmare, not placing the blame at the feet of the man who actually violently attacked her.

Any respect I ever had for Susan Collins ended today.  I never would have voted for her, but I could understand why people admired her, and thought that she was different from, say, Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham, the sort of person I could have a fundamental difference with but still believe she came at her opinions from an honest place.  She didn't have to do this today.  Lisa Murkowski was the brave one, coming out as a "No" with no cover, and Collins could have simply echoed Murkowski's sentiments.  Joe Manchin surely would have followed suit with a Neil Gorsuch-style nominee confirmed during the lame duck session but Collins refused to entertain such an idea, and as a result, Collins elected Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, likely for the rest of her life.  Despite understanding his violent history with women, and his loose ability to tell the truth, and the way he angrily attacked her colleagues Dianne Feinstein & Amy Klobuchar for simply asking questions about his behavior, she voted for him anyway.  Despite knowing the message it would send to victims of sexual assault everywhere, that a rapist deserves a spot on the Supreme Court and the woman he attacked needs to be pushed to the margins, she voted for him anyway.  Despite knowing (she's not stupid) that Kavanaugh is not David Souter or Anthony Kennedy or Sandra Day O'Connor (like she claimed), despite realizing that he is in fact a hard-right judge that will jeopardize her progressive work on gay rights and women's rights and the environment, she voted for him anyway.

And instead of acknowledging any sort of empathy for the people who wanted her to understand their point of view, the damage that Brett Kavanaugh could do to their lives, she mocked and berated them for daring to question her.  Not only was there no bravery here, she didn't exhibit the backbone of her fellow senator from Alaska, or the strength that her heroes Margaret Chase Smith and John McCain once took in defying their parties to try and make the world a better place, their own political futures be damned, but she also made sure everyone knew she was angry & blamed protesters and advocates for her anger.  She stood there, with female senators propped up behind her, and lied, repeatedly, to the American people, claiming to be an advocate for the citizens whose rights and lives she was putting in jeopardy.  George Orwell famously wrote at the end of Animal Farm "the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."  Susan Collins may have used bigger words and a thick Maine accent and shown more care in her delivery, but if you closed your eyes during that condescending, cruel speech, you could almost hear Donald Trump delivering the same lines.  For make no mistake, today Susan Collins proved they are one and the same.