Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, is serving his third term in the Maine House of Representatives. 

Last February, the prominent Democratic consultant James Carville told Democrats to “play dead” for the first two years of Trump’s second term, and let the administration self-destruct. While MAGA’s circus of corruption, cruelty and failure to curb prices may prove unpopular at the polls, that does not let Democrats off the hook for not taking a stand. Yet that seems to be precisely what’s happening at the federal, state and local levels.

Mainers, like all Americans, need proactive leaders who defend our values, not complicit ones who stand aside as many of the things that make our country great are dismantled.

This lack of backbone is clear nationally. A brief Senate fight to reinstate health care subsidies by withholding government funding began to resonate with voters. But when moderates caved for empty promises, the strategy collapsed. The result? A clear win for MAGA and the insurance industry, and skyrocketing prices on the American public for their basic health care needs.

Unfortunately, this “play dead” approach has percolated down to Maine. Our Democratic
legislative leadership rejected a bill to prohibit federal agents from disguising their identities while engaging in law enforcement in our state. Other states have passed this law, and while the Trump-loyal SCOTUS might overturn it, passing it would demonstrate principle and courage. There’s no excuse for not giving the bill a hearing.

Some may call such caution “good politics,” as evidenced by Gov. Mills’ months-long hand wringing about allowing a bill to prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE to become law. It should not have taken the president disparaging the state’s most prominent new Mainer population in the most vitriolic manner possible for the governor to take this step, but better late than never.

The Legislature’s BIPOC members who fought so hard for this measure deserve the victory. May this prove that Mainers did not vote for the reality of the MAGA crusade: parents snatched while dropping their kids off at school in Portland, hardworking neighbors disappeared into camps, horrific stories of unprovoked ICE dog attacks and worse from elsewhere in the country.

Confronted with these inhumanities, public support is waning. Standing against them by enacting legislation like LD 1971 and going further is the bare minimum.

Democratic leadership in Augusta has also missed chances to blunt devastating federal cuts to Medicaid, housing, heating assistance and education — cuts that will hurt even the wealthiest Maine communities. We could plug many gaps by simply restoring the income tax brackets for top earners that existed before Paul LePage.

Most Mainers want a functioning state government that does what it can to support our neighbors, without shifting costs onto working and middle-class earners and increased property taxes. Yet even these modest proposals are dismissed as too progressive by the governor and the governor’s allies in the Legislature. Without this revenue, more Mainers will face homelessness and preventable death. We can, and must, do better.

This timidity reached our local decision-making bodies. The Cumberland County Commission continues to hesitate to stop using the county jail as an ICE detention facility, even after ICE detained the jail’s own staff. This popular, principled stand remains a bridge too far. Our county is a diverse and welcoming place, and our leadership should reflect that.

The national lurch toward authoritarianism has been disorienting at all levels, but most Mainers still believe in a government that provides for the common welfare, ensures liberty and justice for all, and that treats everyone equally under the law. We need leaders who are up to this fight, and who will also work for a vision of the future where housing, health care and a habitable planet are rights, not privileges. A strategy that puts the needs of the many first, that will win a consensus once again.

If Democrats continue to play dead, they risk not just an electoral defeat, but relegation to
symbolic opposition status in a one-party rule nation. In this upcoming legislative session, we must demand our leaders find their courage and stand up to these threats, and find the
solutions that work for Maine in the face of federal indifference. Democratic timidity is a recipe for disaster, not a strategy for survival.