“At This Point, I’ll Bet on Susan Collins Over the Resistance”

Ross Douhat at NYT:

I also admire Cheney’s direct anti-Trumpism, as I’ve admired it from Mitt Romney, and now even a little from Mike Pence. (Yes, it’s a low bar.) But if you believe, reasonably, that the immediate danger posed by Trump’s demagogy involves an attempted Electoral College theft in 2024, then Cheney’s work is a lot less important than the bipartisan effort underway in the Senate to reform the Electoral Count Act. And that effort is being steered, with some success so far, by Collins.

Maybe the effort will ultimately fail. But it’s quite possible that the most important response to the events of Jan. 6 will be shepherded by Republicans playing a careful inside game, with the cautious navigation of the senior senator from Maine more essential than a thousand essays about never giving Trumpism an inch.

That’s not a heroic view of how democracies are stabilized and demagogues finally retired. But if the choice is between this unheroism and the mentality that gave us Jeff Zucker and the brothers Cuomo, for now I’m inclined to bet on Susan Collins.

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