Blue States are Sinking

Blue States are sinking. This is not Norman Rockwell’s America. Democrat-dominated Maine is becoming inner city Chicago, or DC, or Philly. Not a surprise, given Democrat polices, it must stop. It will be in 2027, but sooner is needed. Public pressure helps.

Last week, as I headed to Skowhegan Fair’s Demolition Derby, to speak – as a gubernatorial candidate – to 2,000 happy patriots, my phone buzzed. A statewide “shelter in place” alert. A gunman was at large in Windham and was later found dead. No statewide alert was necessary; another state mix-up.

Two days ago, five illegal aliens – or undocumented “Hispanic males” – were chased through Rumford, 30 miles away, after shooting at police officers with AR-15s and pistols. Non-residents, their car was filled with drugs. The three remain on the loose, all possibly armed.

Last night, a man from Lewiston, 20 miles away, ran down the owner of a business in Gray, Maine. She was walking in New Gloucester, 8:30 pm. The foreigner, when apprehended, spoke no English.

As President Trump secures Washington, DC, empowering local police by placing them under (temporary) DEA authority, backing them with National Guard personnel under Title 10, Maine becomes more and more insecure, 10,000 overdoses last year, drugs everywhere, homicides rising.

The southern tip of Maine is a bastion for dangerous, unaccountable, progressive ideology – much imported from California, New York, and Boston, hidden in fancy words, expensive cars, houses behind fences, while what they imported – gradually moves north in the state.

Having often lived north a lot, raised way north of Portland in the quiet woods, reality hits hard. This was never Maine – a place of safe woods, moose and deer, faith, family, and responsible use of rights. Maine was where kids hiked, ran, and cycled freely, only warning, “home for supper.”

Maine was where, in the summer, kids and adults wandered barefoot, left doors unlocked, fished and collected wood for beach fires, later firepits, no worries about armed drug traffickers. But that was then, this is now.

All the progressive, Democrat nonsense has been imported, pushed down on legal, patriotic Mainers, WWII values, hard work, and limited government, replaced with belligerent Marxism, trotted out as DEI, CRT, ESG, boys in girls’ sports, anti-constitutional, violent behavior.

Speaking frankly, for naturalized and born Americans, law-abiding and respectful of what Maine stands for, this is not what we want, what Americans want, what makes a sound nation or state.

Promoting lawlessness, as this Democrat-dominated state now does – trying to end bail, hobble police, punish local officers for helping enforce immigration laws, reverse mandatory minimum sentences for major drug and human trafficking, and imagining 600 dead kids (overdoses) is just “new normal” – is Democrat police, and it is also sick.

So, having seen in the past month two dozen major drug trafficking incidents, local and state police struggling, no effort to oust Chinese grow houses or fentanyl distributors, no interest by Governor Mills – or her handpicked successors Bellows or Pingree – to reverse this, one asks: What is up?

The answer: In Maine, drug overdoses are up, organized crime is up, homicides are up, drug trafficking is up, insecurity is up, domestic and child abuse are up, and lawlessness is up. Bottom line: All politics aside, this is not Maine. Blue states are sinking, and Maine is leading the pack.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!