What is our vision for Maine's future?

My thoughts on our priorities, and how we need to rethink politics to work together

Dear Mainer,

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve made one for the first time in many years: I will write one letter to you, here, every month in 2024. 

I started this Substack last year because I wanted a direct line of communication with you to share some of my thoughts about politics and the solutions we need to improve Mainers’ lives. My goal this year is to use this space to talk to you about our vision for the future of our state and our country — the guiding stars I use to navigate my decision-making in Congress and at home. 

While I don’t believe in distilling complex issues down to soundbites, I do want to try to summarize those guiding stars, starting today. I’ll be digging into these in more detail in the coming months. 

These are some of my top priorities: 

Secure the Future for Mainers and Americans

There are systemic challenges that threaten the future prosperity and security of our country. While that does include traditional threats from enemies at home and abroad, it also includes an out-of-balance trade deficit that threatens our place in the world economy; foreign influence over our energy industry, natural resources, and political process; and a national debt that’s dragging our economy. 

I will prioritize and seek out solutions, no matter who they come from, that:

• protect and privilege American industry and Maine’s heritage industries, such as forest products, farming, and fishing; 

• reduce the debt and improve our trade balance sheets; and 

• deliver independence from undue foreign influence. 

Tackle Economic Inequality

Our tax code and, in many ways, our economy as it’s currently structured are rigged for those at the top. The middle class is seeing price increases in everything from housing to child care and wages are not keeping up. Meanwhile, our approach to anti-poverty policy is needlessly technical and poorly targeted. 

I am interested in addressing economic inequality up and down the income scale by:

• un-rigging systems that unfairly stack the deck for the wealthiest households and corporations;

• empowering middle-class workers to get their fair share of the pie by modernizing workers’ rights and supporting collective bargaining; and

• improving support for struggling, low-income families trying hard to make ends meet. 

Restore Faith in Government by Bringing it Back to The People

Cynicism about the government abounds, and for good reason. The political establishment with its growing control has built guardrails that keep the national political debate moving in the directions they want. The media largely covers and shapes the story of American politics within those set parameters. Faraway “experts” make decisions that affect Mainers’ lives and livelihoods without adequate consideration for our reality on the ground. 

We need the federal government to be more accessible, accountable, and local. For example, that could mean: 

• fighting to ensure Maine fishermen’s hard-earned expertise is driving energy and marine resources management policy that affects their livelihoods; 

• moving more federal agencies out of Washington, DC, and into the states; and

• expanding opportunities for national service. 

To come together and build our future, we need to abandon the “left vs. right” understanding of political identity

Mainers I have met have shared a pretty consistent lament, and it’s one I share from my position as a member of Congress: The national political debate, especially as it’s fed to us by television, social media, the two parties, and most politicians, doesn’t speak to us or our top priorities and concerns. 

Every conversation takes place within the confines of a political discourse that limits our ability to understand each other as anything other than representatives of one position on an imagined left-right political axis — which we are constantly told is the only way to understand differences in opinion, point of view, or experience. 

But most of us don’t fit neatly onto this imaginary spectrum. I’ve been variously labeled a “socialist” by my Republican opponents, a “moderate” by the media, or a “conservative” by my critics on the left. No one is as simple as these minimizing labels suggest. 

The divisive narrative that distills every disagreement down to a fight between “dangerous socialists and woke liberals” on one side and “racist, authoritarian-minded fascists” on the other is ungrounded from reality and unsustainable for social cohesion. It would make us choose between party affiliation and colleagues at work; between party identity and lifelong friends; between party loyalty and members of our own family. 

For many of us this is an impossible choice that pits us not only against people in our community, but against ourselves. The reality is that people contain multitudes, and most of us have both progressive and conservative leanings, ideas, and instincts. I’m a Democrat, yes, and that means something. But it’s not the way I approach my work or my job representing you. What I bring to Congress is my experiences as an American, a Mainer, a guy who grew up in Leeds, a veteran, and as a husband and a father. 

Ask yourself where these positions fit on the imagined left-right spectrum: 

• Is a proposal to raise taxes on billionaires, with most of the revenue dedicated to reducing the national debt, a liberal idea or a conservative one? 

• If the government used tariffs and subsidies to protect and privilege key industries and American workers against monopolies and foreign competitors, would that be a “win” for the left or the right? 

• Do you know anyone who is pro-union, but also in favor of tougher immigration and border laws? 

My suspicion is that each of us could identify ideas that we favor which would be categorized by the scorekeepers as falling on the left or right side of the political spectrum. So, from a practical standpoint, the left-right axis is not that useful for understanding the challenges we face as a nation or a state, or for guiding us in the search for good solutions. 

More ideologically diverse parties would help dismantle left-right thinking

The major parties, as currently constituted, make it too easy for this flawed left-right frame to overtake our entire political discourse. I’m worried that both parties have become far too homogenous and hegemonic. 

To be clear: I’m not making an argument for fleeing the Democratic or Republican parties, but it might be time for the rise of new factions within both parties and possibly across today’s ossified partisan boundaries. That’s what the Blue Dog Coalition, which I’m proud to serve as Co-Chair, is all about. I think of the Blue Dogs as “progressive conservatives” — fiscally responsible Democrats who care more about getting things done than about partisan point-scoring. Perhaps most importantly, Blue Dogs are Democrats committed to representing their districts, whether or not doing so bucks the official party line. 

If we could pull the parties back from perpetual polarization, we could turn them into vehicles for the conversations and solutions that matter most to Mainers. In 2024, this will be the focus of my letters.