In normal times, next year’s Senate race in Maine would feature two women — Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Janet Mills — who grew up in small towns with the eager help from loving families renowned locally.

Both of them got an education, took an interest in public service, married late in life and veered toward the political center. They wanted instead to get things done. Neither was keen to make waves. 

Now Collins is eyeing a sixth term in the Senate while Mills is wrapping up a second term as the state’s first female governor.

As I watch their campaigns unfold, I have this uneasy feeling they are sleepwalking into a firestorm. They appear unwilling to recognize what has become clear to most Mainers: that the politics of the past no longer mean anything.

With President Trump trouncing daily on our nation’s principles and policies — from blowing up shipwrecked sailors to cozying up to dictators — the crisis of our time is to stop him. Plain and simple.

Collins and Mills, though, keep plodding along as if there’s no hurry.

That’s why a guy like Graham Platner, a troubled combat veteran whose most responsible job was serving for less than two years as harbormaster for the tiny town of Sullivan, is attracting so much support. He is a fighter who doesn’t shirk the duty required of him in this time of Trump.

Compare Platner’s social media with the posts shared by Mills.

As I write this, the governor’s most recent Facebook post said, in its entirety, “Public service has never been about titles for me — it’s a lifelong commitment to listening to the people you represent, solving problems, and standing up for those who need a voice. That’s how I’ve always led, and it’s the same approach I’ll take with me to the Senate.”

The two preceding it hailed a band that performed in Portland and  marveled at the wonderful time Mills had at Farmington’s Chester Greenwood Day celebrating the long-ago resident who invented earmuffs.

Yawn.

Platner, on the other hand, asked on his Facebook page, “Why are we allowing Poland Spring to extract our drinking water for profit? This is bullshit. It needs to stop.”

Before that, he called for universal health care and declared that “every establishment corporate politician, of both parties, needs to be replaced.”

There’s that raw anger that Platner isn’t just tapping into. He’s feeling it.

It’s no wonder that his campaign is resonating with Democratic voters who are tired of platitudes, sick of compromise that leaves Trump to run amok, and convinced that the same-old, same-old isn’t the answer anymore.

Collins may be concerned about what’s going on (possibly even seriously concerned), but for Democrats and many others, what’s going on is the takeover of our country by a feckless president who ignores the law, betrays our allies and spends his days with wealthy autocrats whose contempt for everyday Americans could not be more obvious.

I don’t know whether Collins can, in the end, convince enough moderate Mainers to let her stay in Washington for another term. I’m skeptical, but she’s a good politician so maybe she can.

But Mills is heading for disaster unless she changes course.

She not only has to win over not middle-of-the-road voters in the general election but also a majority of her own party, people who have supported for years but are dubious that she’s got what’s needed now.

After all, these are not normal times. If the governor isn’t going to climb into the ring and fight like hell, she needs to throw in the towel.