Politics is not a game, even if many “Progressive” Democrats think so. In Maine, one party has ruled for nearly 30 years, distorting reality, not caring about the hardships they impose on average people. Mainers, like Americans in 2024, are tired of manipulation, misrepresentation, and untruth.

Maine’s “Progressive” Democrat today represents the last stand of the lunatic fringe, and what happens, in fact, to a state that assumes the best, looks away, and wakes up to a nightmare.

Half a dozen truths should be recalled by every single Mainer – every American – whether they vote conservative, traditional Democrat, or just take things as they come, comfortably unaffiliated.

First, this Republic was formed to preserve as much liberty as possible for each citizen, consistent with that same exact right existing for every other citizen in the Republic. That was the plan.  

What does that really mean? It means we have a “social compact,” going back to the Mayflower Compact, embodied in our Declaration, codified in our Federal and State Constitutions.

It is not theory, it is fact. And the “compact” rests on one idea: Freedom of the individual is assured only by putting limits on government. Said differently, our Founders knew – from experience – that concentrated power, at the federal or state level, is the enemy. It comes at the expense of liberty.

Think about it. If government asserts a right to regulate your speech or target you for your opinions, or if it starts to regulate worship, treat you differently for having faith, or tries to shrink your right to self-protection or to keeping and bearing arms, or say how safe you can be in your home, whether it can be invaded, whether you get a fair trial or not – this is all at the expense of individual liberty.

So, Point One: Government power and individual liberty are a “zero sum game.” The more power government takes, the less individuals have. The less government takes, the more People retain.

That is why the Founders gave us the 10^th Amendment, short and sweet: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.”  

Point Two: Practically speaking, when the government takes more money in taxes, gets in the way of the private sector, spends more and creates debt, puts out mandates, regulates, puts limits on what people and businesses can do with their property, says what they have to do, that steals freedom.

Point Three: The Government does not make anything. It can contract for things to be made. It can mandate things be done or not done, but it produces zero wealth, nothing. All the things around you now – look around – were MADE by businesses, by people who risked, worked, invested, and created.

Why does that matter? Because every dollar taken from The People in taxes, by regulations, by stopping people from creating and doing what the market wants, every job stopped, every barrier raised, hurts Maine, hurts people who must pay more, work harder, keep less of what they earn.

Point Four:  Bad decisions – decisions that constantly grow government, concentrate power, take liberties away – are being made by tone-deaf, arrogant, power-hungry, self-absorbed, un-listening legislators and a Democrat governor, attorneys general, and secretaries of state; you hurt people.

What does that mean? It means, if you double the budget in seven years, doubles taxes, in a place already struggling with the highest property, near highest total tax burden, it gets unsustainable.

It means if you cut state police patrols, do not raise funding for patrols in almost 50 years, since 1977, make local law enforcement unaffordable, and then punish them for arresting out of state drug traffickers with kilo loads of fentanyl, heroin, meth, and cocaine, you will see thousands of new overdoses, kids dying at 40 to 70 a month, drive-by shootings, kids and adults addicted.

It means if you concentrate power, turn schools political instead of substantive – as they were in Maine, if you no longer demand real learning, serious effort at language, math, science, history, and “shop” or industrial arts, take those out of the equation, demoralize teachers, education collapses.

Bottom line: This is what has happened in Maine. The radical “Progressive” Democrats have treated politics like their sandbox, a game of one-upmanship, seized power, squeezed out any say for half the state, silenced conservatives, traditional Democrats, unaffiliated voices, and inflicted pain.

So, make no mistake, Maine is in peril. Unconstrained government growth steals personal liberties. It interferes with life until it controls it. It creates anxiety over bills, makes housing, oil, and groceries unaffordable. It imposes suffocating new taxes, mandates, and takes rights, like gun ownership, even as organized crime floods us. This is systemic political failure. That is where Maine is today. It can be reversed, but only if we get people back in charge who truly understand. Politics is not a game.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).