There is one point of agreement between Donald Trump and The Lincoln Project: It’s time for Senator Susan Collins to go. On Twitter this morning, Trump blasted the four-term swing-state GOP senator, who is facing a tough reelection challenge from Maine House speaker Sara Gideon. A message from the president:
There is a nasty rumor out there that Susan Collins of Maine will not be supporting our great United States Supreme Court Nominee. Well, she didn’t support Healthcare or my opening up 5000 square miles of Ocean to Maine, so why should this be any different. Not worth the work!
I wrote last week about the myth of Trump the brilliant strategist, and this week he continues to do damage not only to his own reelection effort, but also those of vulnerable Republicans. Of course, the GOP has no need of Collins’s vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and it is common practice to allow politicians such as Collins outlets to prove their independence in situations such as this one. Especially after Collins provided the decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. But Trump is either too stupid or too vindictive to let someone like Collins do her best to thread the needle and attract enough moderate voters to hold on to her seat. Trump has run a disastrous reelection campaign, but it’s not enough for him to lose the White House; he’s going to do his very best to hand the keys to the Senate over to Chuck Schumer as well. Trump is crashing this plane, and if he has his way, there will be no survivors.