The Portland Press Herald wants New England Republicans to "stand up for their heritage" — by which columnist Steve Collins means surrendering to the establishment that spent decades dismantling it.
Collins traces the GOP from Hannibal Hamlin, who quit the Democrats over slavery in 1856, through generations of "genteel businessmen" who backed "fiscal responsibility, minimal taxes and enough social justice to keep the rabble content." That phrase — Collins' own — reveals how the establishment views ordinary Americans: rabble to be managed, not citizens to be represented.
Then came Trump. Collins blames his "xenophobic rants and ugly politics" for the GOP's near-extinction in New England. Since 2016, only Maine has elected Republicans to federal office. Collins longs for the days of Olympia Snowe, Bill Cohen, and Lowell Weicker — Republicans who operated comfortably within the boundaries the press sets for acceptable opinion.
What Collins never addresses is why voters chose Trump in the first place. Those "genteel" Republicans presided over trade deals that hollowed out working communities, immigration policies that reshaped the electorate, and cultural concessions that left heritage Americans without a voice. The rabble noticed.
Collins frames the choice as Hamlin's: leave a captured party. But Hamlin left the Democrats because they had gone all-in on slavery. Trump's voters would say they face a similar stakes — an institutional consensus that treats their heritage as something shameful rather than worth defending.
The same press ecosystem that dismisses heritage concerns as xenophobia handles other identity crises with conspicuous care. Showbiz Cheat Sheet covered the turmoil around Meghan Markle after her father, Thomas Markle Sr., was taken into custody in Florida on November 6. Political commentator Esther Krakue, speaking on Australia's News24, urged the Sussexes to "take a break" and extended sympathy: "I think that's probably your worst nightmare as a child." Krakue connected the situation to "other recent cases of high-profile individuals accused of crimes against children," calling it "quite disgusting and disturbing" and saying she was disturbed by "how prolific a lot of these crimes are."
Yet the piece focused as much on Harry's demeanor — "The lights were on but no one was home," Krakue said of his European Parliament address on online safety — as on the gravity of what Krakue herself described. Meghan pulled out of her scheduled speaking role but still accompanied Harry, her first public outing since the arrest. Host Samara Gill noted Harry "looks like a man that has not slept well, that has basically no life in him."
Two stories, one pattern. Heritage Americans who push back get called xenophobic. Celebrity families in crisis get grace and soft focus. Collins wants Republicans to return to a politics of managed decline. The voters who rejected that path understood what he apparently does not: a heritage you won't defend isn't a heritage at all.
The question isn't whether New England Republicans can win again. It's whether the party Collins envisions — polite, accommodating, and permanently on defense — is one worth winning.
