Vote like your life depends on it and why I am supporting Troy Jackson

American politics in recent years has become unserious entertainment with very serious and life-changing consequences. Something broke when the country elected its first Black president in 2008, and it has never been put back together. Perhaps it’s because white Americans did the lazy work of assuming that a Black president meant that our nation’s race problem—which was foundational to our formation and development—had magically been eradicated with the election of one man. After all, what would the United States have looked like had it not stolen Indigenous land to expand or stolen Africans to provide the labor which would result in a prosperous young nation.

At the same time, millions were relieved to be “post-racial” and settled far too quickly into the assumption that their fellow country-people felt the same as them. Instead, millions of Americans were not happy about having a Black man at the helm of the country and, as such, were far too eager to embrace an unlikely white savior—a multiple-times failed businessman turned reality TV show host, who for years was broadcast weekly into their homes with his slick veneer of wealth and power, gleefully telling people they were fired. Donald Trump, a man whose questionable business dealings and failings were never hidden. But Donald was the master of creating the illusion of power and control; he was also one of the main drivers of the birther movement that arose in the aftermath of Obama’s election in 2008.

For years, Trump gained prominence and was introduced to younger generations, riding the wave of social media and news that lost its roots as the fourth estate and became entertainment, which far too many people left-of-center brushed off and didn’t take seriously. That, in turn, allowed the racist conman to not only announce his presidential aspirations but actually get elected in 2016.

Despite barely surviving his first term, when he lost in 2020—after inciting a coup attempt on January 6—the majority of Americans who didn’t support Trump’s racism still failed to read the room and the threats facing our nation if Trump succeeded at winning the presidency again in 2024. Instead, people didn’t like the way things went down when Joe Biden suspended his bid for reelection mere months before the election and Kamala Harris taking his place. For myriad reasons, far too numerous (nor important right now) to list at this point, Harris lost and Trump won, again. Once again bolstered by social media, algorithms, and weak journalism.

Except unlike in Trump’s first term, the guardrails that kept him from literally bankrupting and destroying our country no longer exist. The career professionals in the first administration who more or less kept things running have been replaced with craven yes-people who are in support of white Christian nationalism or techno-facsim and who don’t give a damn about the majority of American people. The tech titans of Silicon Valley who once leaned liberal are now playing out their sadistic power-hungry fantasies of creating new ways of being that dehumanize and destroy the majority of American people and are also firmly in bed with this administration, enriching themselves with lucrative government contracts paid for with our tax dollars and are creating a surveillance state to ensure that the American people have no hope.

Two years ago, Elon Musk was just a weird wealthy man who owned a car company and a social media platform and was launching rockets for the government after it gutted NASA. Now he is the man largely responsible for dismantling the very structure that kept this country running—the bureaucracy—while helping himself to our private data. In this brave new world, data is currency and wealth. All while his comrade in villainhood, Peter Thiel, founded the company that is watching us all, while they tell us it for our own good.

All of this means that this year’s midterms are critical to any chance we have as a nation of taking back even a semblance of our country. No longer can we allow our passions and interests drive our votes. The time for voting for who we like is long past; instead, this midterm needs to be treated as possibly the last-ditch effort to save ourselves.

Make no mistake: The people supporting the cruelty of this administration know that too, and that is why they are pouring ungodly sums into this election season. Sums of money that could be better spent in ensuring stability for the people, ensuring that people can survive the cruelty of this big administration and the cuts from the Big Ugly Bill and sky-high oil prices due to an illegal war that almost certainly will draga on interminably. The cuts and cruelty will only intensify after the midterms, especially if the administration is still backed by a GOP-controlled Congress.

Maine is typically seen as a small, rural state whose claim to fame outside of the region is lobsters, lighthouses, and author Stephen King. But in the last year, all eyes have turned to Maine as it has become common knowledge that our senior senator, Susan Collins, has been one of Trump’s chief enablers. Despite what Susan says, her actions in confirming Brett Kavanaugh ultimately led to the demise of Roe v Wade and hundreds of millions of women no longer having control over their own bodies. While Collins opposed the final passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, she voted to advance the bill out of committee and to the Senate floor. It’s a sleight of hand that she is quite skilled at, saying no to Trump only when her no doesn’t matter. And those are only two of dozens of examples of her enabling the right wing and Trump in particular.

Collins, despite serving for almost 30 years, has held her seat in recent years more because her Democratic opponents have been weak and not because Mainers have loved her. But unlike in 2020, Maine doesn’t have the luxury of letting this ghoulish woman win. In fact for a struggling rural state like Maine, letting her win could signal our destruction.

Lucky for Maine and the nation, we have a fighter running against her: former Maine Senate President and former logger Troy Jackson. Obviously, election season this year in Maine has been like an extra dramatic Lifetime movie, and despite the wild twists and turns of the post-primary season, Troy is the Democratic nominee for the Senate race.

While much ado has been made about his lack of instant charisma, I’d say that Jackson, who grew up in northern Maine and who was and is no stranger to understanding the realities of being working class, is actually very real and charismatic in the ways that those who have had to fight all their life are charismatic. Troy is very much no-nonsense but laser-focused on doing what is right for Maine and this country.

I had a chance to chat with Troy via Zoom one-on-one in September, days after his first grandchild was born. My immediate thought was that he seemed tired, driven, and committed. He also seemed naturally cautious in our conversation and what immediately stood out was that Troy does a lot of listening and pausing before he speaks, which in the era of the “charismatic politician” stands out. At a time when everyone is jockeying to take up space and run their mouths, Troy’s listening is what stood out—he is a thoughtful fellow. Which makes his ability to connect even more real because you sense he is hearing you and trying to meet you where you are.

In reviewing our conversation, I shared a lot about my own working-class background and it was a connection point as he talked about seeing people in his community struggling and having been born of a single teenage mom, a struggle he knew intimately. During his tenure in the Maine legislature he pushed for universal lunches for school kids. In a recent radio ad he talked about how he believes people shouldn’t have to figure out how to feed their families. He talked about going to the grocery store and then figuring out if you needed to put something back because you don’t have enough money, something that no one should have to do. As a former teenage mom myself, his interest in feeding people really caught my attention, because for years that was my life. It is also the current reality for many in Maine and beyond as grocery prices continue to rise.

We talked about why he believes Medicare for all is what we need in this country, and that ultimately if we take insurance off the backs of employers it will help employers to invest in their people with higher wages. Coming from Northern Maine, Troy is familiar with small employers and how in many places in Maine, people work at small outfits with bosses who are not fat cats, but people caught in an unfair system and how that system strangles not only the employees but the employer and that ultimately Medicare for all would be a boon across the board.

We talked about how he has seen people struggle without healthcare and having to make difficult decisions as well as the now-disappearing healthcare facilities in many parts of our state. In the last decade, Maine has seen a dozen birthing centers close across the state. The closing of birthing centers in an old rural state is not a good thing for mothers and babies or the future. Women deserve to be able to give birth close to home; it ensures better outcomes. Something that as a new grandfather was clearly on his mind. He believes that we need to increase reimbursements to hospitals so that they remain accessible.

Troy seems thoughtfully connected to the realities facing Mainers and by extension Americans as we see private equity change our landscape and communities.

It was a brief 40-minute discussion but I left with a better sense of who he would be in the Senate, and I ended the call feeling that he is truly well-suited to understand what working Americans are facing. After all, this is a man who in his latest financial disclosure it was reported that between last year and this year, he earned $130,000 in income and his net worth (which includes his partner’s retirement) comes in around $400,000. Which for an almost 60-year-old white man in America is far closer to his peers and the average worker than Susan Collins and her net worth of $7 million.

The campaign commercials in Maine being run by Susan Collins and those working on her behalf or eager to have her in their corner still have implied that Jackson is some type of Augusta insider raking in the dollars.

As a Maine voter and former elected official, I know that Maine politics aren’t exactly a get-rich pathway. The Maine legislature recently got raises, and the current rate for a Rep or Senator is $45,000 for a two-year term. $25,000 the first year and $20,000 the second year. Leadership gets a bonus, putting the top payrate for Troy’s old position at $67,000 for two years. Let me repeat that: $67,000 for two years of work. Sure, there are meal per-diems and travel reimbursement along with health insurance and whatnot, but for the amount of work the Maine legislature does, they make less than my 21-year-old daughter does as a shift leader at a retail establishment—and a lot of them have to hold full-time jobs on top of being elected officials to be able to be public servants and survive. Given that Troy served years ago before that increase, suffice to say that he wasn’t exactly raking in any big dollars. Nor does he have any wealthy or wealthy-ish parents to my understanding buying him a home.

This man is literally living the life of a lot of Mainers and frankly in the world of billionaires trying to screw us all, that actually makes me feel like he won’t go to D.C. and forget where he came from or the struggles of working Americans.

I recently spoke at an event held by the Portland, Maine, Indivisible chapter. Troy was also a speaker along with gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Troy and I made small talk in the speaker’s tent and I had the chance to observe how he interacted one-on-one with people as well as hearing him speak to the crowd. I was struck by how real he was. He isn’t a perfect orator; he makes verbal missteps and can laugh at it when he catches them but he is a real working-class man who wants a better reality for those he loves and his fellow Mainers and Americans. As a side note, he definitely lights up when he mentions his granddaughter and as a fellow 50-something grandparent, I relate.

The national pundits are talking about Troy’s electability or his perceived lack of charisma but here is the thing: As someone who has lived in Maine for almost 25 years now, Mainers are a cautious bunch, where too much charm can make people suspicious, and after the weirdness of the primary and immediate post-primary chaos, for many Mainers, Troy is just what the doctor ordered. A man who has evolved in his thinking and isn’t afraid to own his evolution and who has served in our state’s capital for many years. Even the national media unearthing his personal life and youthful foibles isn’t something the average Maine voter cares about.

Ultimately, the goal is to unseat Susan Collins and while she may be better funded, she hasn’t been connected to her constituents in years and most certainly isn’t working for us. And whatever perceived shortcomings that Troy may have, one thing is clear: He cares about the people. It was that care many years ago as a logger which led him to the Maine statehouse. Isn’t this the kind of candidate we want working for us?

I sure as hell do, and as I told Troy personally, “You have my support.” And if you are a Maine voter who hasn’t voted yet, I urge you to support Troy. We need a straight-talking worker who represents the people in the U.S. Senate.