Life of the Party: Maine's Senate Race Tests the Democrats' Future

Jeff Robbins on May 5, 2026

In his famous poem "The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats ruminated about what happens when "the center cannot hold," and "things fall apart." Things have well and truly fallen apart in America and the collapse of the political center is both a cause and a symptom. For those of us who are Democrats, the disintegration of a large, influential political "middle" that demands that democratic norms and the rule of law be respected and that crudeness and cruelty be rejected has been not only dispiriting but alarming. Whether the America that we knew and thought we would always have survives now seems very much like a jump ball.

As a lifelong Democrat, who served as counsel to Democratic Senators and was twice appointed by the Clinton White House as a delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, it will surprise no one that I do not place the blame for what has occurred over the past 10 years equally on both parties. The jaw-dropping abuse of power, the Roman emperor-like self-dealing and the assault on democratic institutions by President Donald Trump, embraced by the GOP, have had a poisonous effect, in my view.

But the flight to extremism and the metastasizing inanity is a two-party problem and those of us who are Democrats and who care about the importance of regrowing the dormant (if not dead) political center have an obligation to try to do something about it. That's especially true for those of us who teach political science and who spend disproportionate amounts of time wringing our hands about the bitter polarization afflicting our country and challenging our students to come up with the ideas that we ourselves don't have about remedying it.

It starts with Democrats being honest. Our party is now powered by a base that is riddled with anti-Semitism and driven by influencers like Hasan Piker, who maintains that America got what it deserved on 9/11, who extol the murderer of a health care executive because of the state of health care, who defend genocidal slaughterers like Hamas and Hezbollah and who expressly celebrate anarchy. Our party features politicians falling over one another to demonize Jewish American supporters of Israel for petitioning their elected representatives because it is popular to demonize them, when they would never do this, say, to Black Americans or Hispanic Americans or LGBTQ Americans who were exercising their rights as participants in a democracy.

Which brings us to the Maine Senate race. The certain Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, has said about Hamas' execution of Israelis, "I dig it." He has made racist comments about Blacks not tipping. He has denigrated women, posting that they shouldn't drink too much if they don't want to be raped. He has crudely belittled the LGBTQ community. He has called all policemen "bastards" and rural white Americans "racist" and "stupid." He got a Nazi tattoo put on his chest and wore it proudly for years; his former campaign manager posted that "he knows damn well what it means." For those who seek to wave this away, former President Joe Biden's former envoy to combat anti-Semitism, Professor Deborah Lipstadt, asked this question: "If he had the Confederate flag tattooed on him, would we be told 'He's a good guy' by the Pod Save America crew?"

I was Chief Counsel for the Senate Democrats on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations when Susan Collins, a Republican, was its Chair. She was straightforward, honest, exceedingly diligent, smart, thoughtful and dignified. For her, it was all about the work. She cared deeply about the Senate as an institution -- and about bipartisanship.

I have publicly disagreed with her. I wish that she had been far more vocal about Trump. I understand that who controls the Senate matters a great deal.

But at the end of the day, Susan Collins is what a United States Senator should be. Graham Platner is not. Which means that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents should reject Platner and should return Collins to the Senate.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.