On getting hung up on by a Collins staffer

and why it matters

My call record to Senator Susan Collins’ Lewiston, Maine office. Two minutes and five seconds to getting hung up on, forty three seconds to call back and tell them I’d just tell my story on social media and possibly in the press.

Today a staffer at Senator Susan Collins’ Lewiston, Maine office hung up on me, after talking over me defensively for a lot of the call. Here’s what went down.

I called early this morning and was astonished that anyone actually answered the phone. My plan had been to leave a message. Getting a live answer at Senator Angus King’s or Representative Jared Golden’s offices is a pretty common occurrence. Getting a live person at any of Collins’ offices is a rarity, so I was pleasantly surprised.

My question was: Will Susan Collins make a statement or offer support in response to Representative Jamie Raskin’s comment that he would start an impeachment process the next day if he could just “get two Republicans.” Collins’ staffer immediately started talking over me about how impeachment is started in the House. I explained, in fact, had to explain more than once because she wasn’t listening, that I knew that, but still thought that Collins, as a leader in the GOP, might have some influence if she weighed in. I know it’s probably grossly naïve of me to think that Collins, who is perpetually “concerned” but never solution oriented, and who covers her actions (or inaction, depending) under the smokescreen of “protocol,” would dare step into that fray. After all, in spite of her regular referencing of Maine icon Margaret Chase Smith, she is no Margaret Chase Smith.

After that portion of the conversation, I started to ask about what the Senator might do about the ongoing Musk incursion, however when I dared to suggest that the MAGA wing of the party were following a Nazi playbook, the staffer, even more agitated, cut me off. “OK, HAVE A NICE DAY,” she said. Click.

For the benefit of anyone handling staffing for the Collins organization, this was 8 AM, February 5th, Lewiston office. Check who was on duty if you’d like to have a word with her.

Maybe the staffer was salty because the day before some protestors showed up at the Lewiston office. One of them was carrying a sign that said we’d seen this kind of thing before in 1933. Or maybe she was cranky because, from what some people in the know have told me, the phones are ringing pretty steadily with similarly themed questions. If she’s drunk the MAGA Kool-Aid this must be driving some major cognitive dissonance for her. I mean, I was pretty irritated too, but in my case it was because my country is in the midst of a fascist coup and the Senator she works for isn’t doing jack about it.

Whether they like it or not, they answer to us. That’s their job. We are constituents and what we think, feel, and say is not just important every election cycle when they’re looking for our campaign dollars and our votes. Or is it? Collins is a great example of why we need term limits in the Senate. She has grown wildly complacent and sometimes even deeply harmful. She gave us Brett Kavanaugh on the SCOTUS while her phone lines were flooded with Mainers begging her not to and voted against conviction and removal of Trump, which would have saved us the nightmare that is now unfolding. In short, she has already failed us. The very least she could do is have staffers properly trained in respectfully handling the justifiably intense calls her constituents are making to her offices.

My work has involved public interaction for decades, in my fiber art businesses, my teaching, as the primary point of guest contact for an office I manage, and prior to all of this, as a real estate broker. I know it can be difficult. But the stakes are high right now. Our very democracy is at stake as Project 2025 rolls out at disorienting speed.

MAGA wants us to become completely overwhelmed and fold. DON’T. It matters that that staffer doesn’t want to talk to me or possibly a lot of other constituents asking pointed questions. It matters because, for some people, running into the brick wall of deflection and dismissal at their Senator’s office could be enough to instill hopelessness and paralysis. No one should fall for it. In fact, everyone should simply make more calls, more visits, write more editorials and blog posts, go to more protests, boycott more MAGA companies, make more activist art, and keep going.

I have a viable pathway to Canada thru my Canadian relatives, but that’s not plan A. I have even more relatives stateside and I don’t want to leave them. I have dreams set on the Maine coast that are now necessarily on hold because of this shit. So I’m here to organize, to fight, to care for my loved ones and community members, through this. It is what it is, just as it was the better part of a century ago when it was still cool to punch Nazis.

That number at the top of this post is the Lewiston, Maine office of Senator Susan Collins. If you’re a Mainer, give that office a call and tell them what you want from our Senator. And don’t take hanging up sitting down.