I am heartened by the local and vocal responses to the emergencies presented by President Trump and his administration. But I am still tremendously disturbed by his success in destroying our government’s checks and balances.

The checks and balances were put there by our constitutional framers for good reason: to keep any branch of government from grabbing all the power levers and thereby establishing a dictatorship.

Our government has three branches: the Executive (the presidency and its departments); the Legislative (Congress), and the Judicial (the Supreme Court and all the lesser courts). Trump now dominates all three, by virtue of winning both houses of Congress (by razor thin margins), winning the presidency, and by nominating three conservative judges to the Supreme Court during his first term.

This isn’t the first time all three branches have been held by one party, but it is the first time a president has dominated all three branches so thoroughly and been so disrespectful of our federal government and has been so determined to dismantle it.

In the past, there were courageous Maine politicians who were willing to stand up for our system of checks and balances, and who were willing to displease an aggressive lawmaker. Witness Sen. Margaret Chase Smith who stood up to Joe McCarthy, Gov. Janet Mills who stood up to President Trump, and Sen. Angus King who spoke out against Cabinet nominee Russel Vought.

We need Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Jared Golden to call a spade a spade, pronto.

Ben Lounsbury, Auburn