Air conditioning isn't bad, our energy grid is

 So...France recently blamed the US for...air conditioning causing heat waves. The argument is that our energy needs to power air conditioning is powering climate change, which is thus intensifying the need for air conditioning, which is causing more climate change. This is very misleading. 

The real cause of climate change is fossil fuels. I am of the opinion that the US should NOT have to rely on fossil fuels to power our energy grids. Between wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc., we should be able to have more than enough power to power our energy grid without causing global warming. We should have been working on this fifty years ago. I mean, Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the white house roof. but then the oil companies feared irrelevance, and launched a war on science. The Reagan administration went full "drill baby drill", and religious extremism brainwashed people against climate change even being a thing. So we literally ignored the problem for decades. And now in the 2020s, things are getting so bad we can't ignore it. The US is in a massive drought, this could ultimately impact food output, which is being compounded by the fertilizer crisis from the war with Iran. Europe is experiencing massive heat waves, hell, so is America. I'm only in my 30s and I've noticed a rather large shift in the climate from when I was a kid. From 2010 onward I've noticed summers seem hotter. I've also noticed winters seem to have less snow. And in the 2020s, it's like hell on earth. Every summer is the hottest ever, the climate is changing faster than the worst models predicted. Entire systems might be on the verge of collapse, or reaching a point of no return like the AMOC current in the atlantic. Entire areas of the world and the US might become unlivable. Sea levels are swallowing islands. The American west is becoming uninhabitable as much of it is desert in the first place and now the water that exists is drying up. 

Yeah...air conditioning, in terms of power use, is contributing to this. However, wanna know what else is contributing? Literally all of modern life. Your computer contributes to climate change. Cars contribute, and those NEED to run on fossil fuels. While the actual physical grid could be powered by cleaner energy, cars are more problematic. And if we wanna go into my thing, what about work culture? What about forcing people to commute to offices we dont need and not letting them work from home? What about forcing everyone to get a job so number on spreadsheet goes up? What about all this AI crap where we're building tons of data centers to meet demand for AI that doesnt exist yet in what seems to be the economic bubble of the 2020s? That's taking up TONS of electricity, tons of water, it's distorting the whole hardware market. We're killing the climate over this stupid crap. But sure, let's blame the one thing we do to try to keep us cool and comfortable.  

 In a lot of ways, blaming people for their habits seems to be missing the point. A lot of people on the left notice this. There's a lot of lecturing about what individuals can do to solve climate change, when in reality, most of it is driven by the interests of the ultra wealthy. They fly around on private jets everywhere, their enterprises destroy the environment on a massive scale, and they basically force all of us into their system of economic dependence. But how dare we not want to use pasta straws or keep cool in the summer. Ya know? It's dumb. 

Anyway, that's how I view the issue. The bulk of the issue is caused by the wealthy, it's caused by the powerful, and it's caused by those evil and batcrap insane ideologies I pointed out in the previous post. We should have nipped this in the bud 50 years ago but some rich people decided they wouldnt profit off of it and it would make them sad so let's drive the planet into the gutter so oil companies can continue to make tons of money. Even though it's a disaster waiting to happen since it's a finite resource, the supply is dwindling, it'll eventually become scarce, and our economy is functionally dependent on it. 

Really....short term profits are what's really killing us. Right wing ideology is killing us. Infinite growth on a finite planet is killing us. A refusal to invest in solar, wind, and nuclear is killing us. We should have a world with air conditioning, but that air conditioning being powered by an actually sustainable power grid that doesnt contribute to climate change. And you know what? We were mostly on the right track with Biden, I admit, we couldve done a little better than the inflation reduction act, but it was the best he could pass at the time. Beats Trump's spiteful mentality of ripping that up because screw democrats and then basically going back to an unfettered focus of fossil fuels...and then blowing up THAT market because of his dumb foreign policy decisions. 

Anyway, it just seems really dumb to blame air conditioning for climate change in particular because when you make Americans choose between comfort and the environment you're making the problem worse since most are short sighted and will choose comfort. And even worse, it's a fricking false choice. We should have sustainable energy AND air conditioning. And Im gonna be honest, I'd rather energy go to powering AC in summer than to all this AI crap. 

And yeah, that's how I see it.  

Discussing celebrating death and virtue signalling

 So another right winger died (Lindsey Graham), and while I wouldnt normally talk about it, since, my general view on these sorts of things is if I don't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all, a lot of left wing content creators I follow are absolutely giddy at this guy dying. And...idk, it rubs me the wrong way.

I guess I understand it if the guy is REALLY REALLY bad. I know I was doing a victory lap when we killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. But...other than that, I try to avoid doing that. It sets a bad precedent. While I might think a lot of right wingers are vile people, I generally want everyone to have a good life no matter how misguided they are. I might dislike or hate people, but I dont' generally actively wish harm on them. I guess it can be said some obituaries are read with great satisfaction, but I'm meh on graham. He was a right winger. He really liked war. he was anti gay rights, despite being in the closet himself, and I've found out WAAAAY too much about this man's sex life today.  Like stuff I wish I can purge from my memory because oh god, why. 

But yeah. To me, he was just a rank and file right winger. A typical conservative. Someone who pre trump hated him, but then got on board the trump train and sold his soul to the movement. His values were just that, typical right wing chrsitian values. His views on war were that of a typical neocon. Now, that doesn't make him a GOOD person, dont get me wrong. I mean, I pretty much view right wing ideology as evil, but again, it's just a very much standard and common evil in today's world. Part of my interest in politics is destroying Graham's ideology. But that doesnt mean I want him to die. Rather, I want him to change, or at least for those adherents to lose influence over time as millennials and zoomers start flexing their political muscles. I will celebrate a progressive victory way harder than I will a man's death, because that's the right way of doing things. Celebrating a guy's death feels icky to me. First of all, it's one of those things conservatives do. Conservatives have an ideology, and they want people who dont follow it to suffer. If anything that's the source of much of the evil that drives them. And when it seems like the left celebrates a guy dying, it's like they're doing the same thing. but I try to avoid thinking that these people deserve anything. They might be vile, but again, I want them to live well. I want them to stop rolling around in their own moral filth. The world sucks because of these people, but I genuinely want them to realize that, like I once did, and to change. Despite right wing ideology being evil and much of what's wrong with the world, most individual right wingers arent bad people, they're ignorant and misguided people. I dont want the world to burn, I want the world to learn. And one guy's death doesnt mean much if he's just gonna be replaced by someone just as bad. 

Second, I don't like the weird virtue signalling the left is doing recently. We saw it recently with the other graham, graham platner. About how people are falling over themselves to point out that they always thought that something was fishy about the guy and they were the first to point it out and they were always on the "right side" of history. And as I said, I dont care. Im not interested in virtue. If anything, one thing that i value about the right politically,.which is why I've been using the rumors about mcconnell's death to make a point about the right and power, is that the right fights for their ideals. And they do so effectively. The left virtue signals, the right organizes, seizes power structures, and focuses on indoctrinating their views into the masses. That's why they're the dominant ideological force and the left isn't. They control the levers of power, they control the education system. They formulate policy in their image, and they indoctrinate the next generation with its ideas. They understand politics is a battle of ideas and they will fight to make sure theirs remain dominant. And that's the thing. The right is basically a handful of rich people who knows what they're doing is ####ed but they do it anyway to preserve their extreme wealth (the epstein class) followed by a bunch of useful idiots brainwashed into these ways of thinking by religion, the education system (or lack thereof), etc. And that's where I fight, I focus on ideas, I focus on attacking the core values, and the structures that keep us brainwashed. As an ex right winger, I want right wing ideas to die, but that doesnt mean I want right wingers themselves to die. As an ex right winger, I want them to learn like I did. 

But the left...well....they're just interested in weird public displays of morality, virtue signalling, and believing that those who dont share their virtues deserve to suffer. Which doesnt make them much better than the right. It just makes them look like out of touch self righteous A-hats to be honest. No one actually likes these people. The game amongst themselves is weird virtue signalling and having to be more moral than each other, or to all be in the same clique hugboxing about how morally superior they are while doing F all to advance the causes in the real world.

Again, the right siezes power. They aim for the power structures, they aim for the centers of propaganda. They're focused on enforcing and reinforcing a political ideology, and making it self replicating like a mind virus. Graham is just one guy in this whole system. And he comes off to be as a true believer. Maybe one who is closeted, but let me say something about that. Religion makes it where those urges seem like "sin". So rather than approach the situation for what it is, these guys remain closeted, fighting that "lifestyle" as they call it publicly, but engaging in it privately because hey guess what, they actually have those urges, and doesnt have a proper worldview for handle that properly. The worldview pathologizes that stuff, it makes them live unhealthily as a result, but rather than abandon the worldview, they maintain the beliefs, leading to this conflict. it's not as hypocritical as the left wants it to be. Graham probably genuinely believed that stuff was sinful. But he also recognized that he was a sinner himself. Just the nature of christian self loathing. That mind virus does that.

Again, I try to be charitable to the people to some degree, while recognizing that what's evil is the ideology. And the ideology didnt start with people like lindsey graham. He's just a believer in it, just like the rest of them. A lot of people on the right genuinely believe in what they're fighting for. And while yes, what they're fighting for is complete and utter crap, they dont know better. I would know, I was one of them, I was in that mindset at one time. People like LIndsey graham arent evil as much as they're horribly ignorant. And it's the IDEAS that should be condemned as evil, not the people. 

So...RIP Lindsey Graham. Hope you're having some freaky you know what in heaven if that exists. You know you want to, and God, to my knowledge, doesn't actually care. I guess your life review was kinda crap but eh....that's gonna happen. But hey, you didnt know on earth. So you couldn't have known better, right? I guess that's what life here is, a learning experience. So...learn from it and move on I guess. 

Correction: Mitch McConnell is alive

 Okay, so lately I've been implying that Mitch McConnell is probably dead and that they were delaying announcing his death until the deadline for a special election has passed. Well, he's alive. Lindsey Graham just died though. Just wanted to offer a correction. Ya know, keep things as factual as possible on here. 

You shouldn't have to apologize for being right

 So....some house candidate in Michigan came out and basically said that a lot of black political leaders "defang the white left", and that this is a "big problem for left politics in this country." He's being pressured to apologize and walk back the comments. 

I see no falsehoods there. Again, I got nothing against most black voters, but let's be honest, a lot of the congressional black caucus tends to be very much in bed with the democratic establishment, and democrats LOVE to weaponize these guys against white progressives. We saw it in 2016 with the "Bernie Bro" narratives. "You see, you white progressives, you dont understand the black vote!" and crap like that. Told Sanders doesnt appeal to black people, told by really annoying centristy types we can't cater to white working class voters without alienating african American voters, blah blah blah. The democrats use race as a wedge issue to split up the left. They did it as recently as 2024 by making South Carolina the first primary state specifically because they knew the old, conservative, black voters there would back Biden, crushing a potential primary challenge.

I mean, I hate this crap we're we're just expected to apologize for everything. We saw this recently with Platner, where it's like we're just supposed to apologize for supporting him in the first place just because he turned out to be a sex pest. I mean, yeah, he is a sex pest, and yeah, his political career is over at this point, but a lot of us male progressives are getting put through the wringer because OMG HOW COULD WE SUPPORT SOMEONE LIKE THAT, along side weird discussions about rape culture and crap. Easy, the dude wanted to give us universal healthcare and his opponents didn't. Believe it or not, ideas like medicare for all, or in my case, UBI, are very important to us, and that's what really motivates us to support the left. but when the left wavers on those topics, and even worse, starts delving into toxic idpol to shame us for daring to hold reasonable opinions, then a lot of us are alienated from the movement, and then we're scratching our heads like we were in 2024-2025 wondering why we're losing young white males. It's because not only are the democrats not offering coherent, effective solutions to improve their lives, but they're hostile to their very existence. It's like they WANNA repel these guys. Because everything is a shame fest about how we need to STFU, they dont' care about our issues, and we gotta care more about POC and women and THEIR issues. And let's not forget LGBT+ too. Gotta drop everything for that 0.6% of the population that's trans and if we dont make their issues front and center we're "throwing them under the bus." 

Again, I have nothing against racial minorities, women, or the LGBT+ community. And I dont even see their issues as inherent opposed to mine. BUT...the democrats tend to use these issues to drive a wedge in potential progressive coalition to keep us infighting amongst ourselves. And quite frankly, that's all this guy pointed out. he wasn't wrong, he shouldn't have to apologize, and I'm sick of this weird moral shaming we're doing. So....just as I'm not sorry for backing Platner, I'm not sorry over comments like this. Sometimes we need people to be blunt and to say the thing, and while I understand it may offend some, I really REALLY don't care. I'm so fricking done with trying to contort my opinion and fit within their overton window. Again, I got nothing against any identity groups on a personal level, quite frankly, I only care when idpol is weaponized against my own interests. And yeah, maybe I'm a crass, stereotypical bernie bro. Oh well, boo hoo, that's who I am. I ain't apologizing for who I am, what I stand for, and calling BS out when I see it. Sick and tired of the moral policing on this side of the political aisle. 

I make no apologies for my former Platner support

 I know this is kinda edgy, but given the obsession on the left with regretting supporting Platner, and the desire to be "right", and all the oneupsmanship over who is more moral and who noticed the red flags first, I just wanna say, I don't care. I mean, this should be obvious, I already blasted the center with their obsession with respectability politics, but the far left is also doing this stuff, going on about how flawed he is, with some pointing out that they never liked him and how they were vindicated, blah blah.

Again. I don't care. I REALLY don't care. I supported Platner. he was a solid candidate until the rape accusations came out. Susan Collins is a republican. Janet Mills is an establishment centrist. Platner is a progressive. Am I supposed to apologize for backing a progressive? I know on the hard left a lot of this morality and virtue stuff is tied to this weird pharasaic culture of appearing moral and signalling the right virtues, and a lot of it is also driven, quite frankly, by idpol. There's all this talk about feminism and how we need to "believe all women" and how we look like chuds supporting the guy. We got some going on about how it looks bad with the international left because it makes us white male bernie bro types like we'd sell out any group at a moment's notice and uh...what kind of insular fudge is this?! Leftists have such weird ideological brainworms, man.

I'm simple. You run on a progressive platform vs a centrist and a republican, and I support you, period. And Platner was a progressive. I make no apologies for doing this. He was a solid candidate at the time. Do I support him NOW? No. I do believe he should be recalled, and replaced with another progressive. I do believe the accusations are credible, and let's leave it at that. I'm willing to change my mind in light of new evidence, and I DO change my mind in the light of new evidence. And that's how I square this whole circle. Based on the evidence that I had, Platner was the best candidate, period. Hell, you could technically argue he still is given the alternatives, but let's face it, he's so radioactive, no one wants to touch him, not even me. 

Still, if anything, I'll be looking back on this a few months from now asking if it was worth it to abandon him. And I think this is something that we should ask ourselves. Tensions are high right now, but given these accusations are pushed to basically "shock" us out of supporting our nominee and giving a rival faction the opportunity to push their preferred candidate on us, was it worth it? Was it worth it standing on principle to abandon our best chance at a progressive in the seat because he sucks on character issues? If anything, that's how I look at this. At the end of the day, our options are: Susan Collins, a moderate democrat, platner, or another progressive. If we get another progressive, then cool, but I suspect the democrats are gonna push Mills or some moderate on us who is morally compromised in other ways. And we should ask ourselves, is it worth it? Is it worth standing on this vague sense of moral purity and get screwed out of our goals?

That's the real question I'm gonna be asking long term. I mean, as you guys can tell, I kinda agree with the idea that Platner is too morally compromised to continue as nominee, the behaviors uncovered arent just immoral, they're egregiously criminal. BUT...at the end of the day, politics is about power. And us giving up our power to a rival faction that has a vested interest in stabbing us in the back doesn't sit right with me either. Do we see MAGA abandoning Trump because of these kinds of accusations? And sure, you can say that us having standards is what separates us from MAGA, but dang it, I don't wanna simply be "better than" MAGA, I wanna WIN. And if we can't win, we'll be governed by our lessers anyway. There is no value in politics in going down with the ship on principle. I know people kind of think that perspective is morally disgusting, it's slimy, but hey, that's how I see it. If we dont stick to our guns, we end up losing and being ruled by those who ARE willing to go all the way.

Basically, we're screwed. If we do support the guy, we go down with the ship with him. He can't win an election now. Not in his state. He's too compromised and tainted. The public will never got for it. Him staying in the race is the equivalent of handing the seat over to Collins while looking like a total POS in the process. But again, doing the "right" thing also hurts us too. We lose what could have been a decent progressive in the senate in favor of someone who is IMO morally compromised as well, just in another way. 

Honestly, I think we should talk about who is ultimately responsible for this conundrum. It's Platner himself. Platner decided to run with all of these skeletons in his closet, and he imploded because of it. ANd now HE put US in this position in the first place. We shouldnt blame anyone who supported Platner for now things turned out. We should blame Platner himself for running despite these compromises. And yeah, a lot of us were willing to overlook a lot. You gotta do it when they're the only one running on a platform that's good. But his scandals kept escalating until one dropped that was just devastating. Platner shouldnt have run at all. Would someone else have answered the call if he didn't? Im not sure. But honestly, yeah, dont feel bad if you supported the guy. The moral guilt, as far as I'm concrned, isnt on his supporters, its on him. 

With that said, no, I don't make apologies for supporting him. He was the best candidate at the time, the rationale for supporting him was solid in my view. I dont regret the logic associated with it. Im not trying to play the whole "Im the most moral" game. And if anything I feel a twinge of regret from knowingly allowing myself to be manipulated by a rival faction that has a vested interest in wanting him gone so they can push their own candidate on us. Still, given the alternatives, supporting him isnt any better. Morality aside, he cant win anyway. He lost 7 points in the polls in the past month, and that was before this one dropped, he probably would definitely lose the seat for us if he remains in the race. So, we're just screwed, and at the end of the day, the person most responsible for this is platner himself, for running in the first place and putting us in such an uncomfortable position when his scandals came to light. The dude failed his constituents by doing that. And that's how I REALLY see it. 

Simulating the effect of a possible democratic voter rebellion in Maine

 So....let's really start thinking about this empirically. I understand my simulation model is kinda flawed, but it's good or close situations like this. With Platner dropping out, let's assume a blank slate for Maine. We don't know who the candidate is, what their polling data will look like and while I've seen internals going around, who knows. Maine is also a very weird state with polling, with Collins being a historic underperformer. So we really don't know where Maine is right now. it was at D+0.7% with Platner still in, but that was pre scandal, and I'm gonna assume it's now closer to R+4. 

In terms of my raw election model, with Maine being neutral, we're at a 50% chance to win the senate, with Maine and Iowa both being coin flips, and the result being 50-48 with either faction gaining up to 2 seats. 

 We could see 52-48 DEMs as Iowa and Maine go democrat. 50-50 if both go republican, or maybe some 51-49 mix as one goes each way. Given how close the other races are, we could see anything from 48-52 REP to 54-46 DEM. It really is up in the air. I mean, ANY of these outcomes is reasonably possible. This is why I'm saying that the senate doesnt RELY on maine, but it does help to win it. There are like 6 races in coin flip range and any of them could go for either party. We might see the republicans sweep all 6, the democrats sweep all 6, or some mix in between. And maine itself doesnt change my main model much given Iowa also being as pivotal here.

With that said, let's discuss simulations. With Maine being at 0.0% or a tie, if I do 100 simulations with my current model, I get:

Dems: 50

Reps: 17

Tie: 33

We can get some variation between sample sizes of 100, but anything within, say, 3-5% of that is probably within the margin of error I'd say. 

With that said, let's change Maine to R+4, simulating an unpopular outcome for replacing platner (or even a possible keeping him on the ballot, since I'd estimate R+4 is about where the race is post scandal)::

 

This is what the main forecast looks like, given it operates on a wave theory of elections, it's not much different, but that can lack some variation. If we assume individual outcomes aren't linked, and we go with another 100 simulations, we get:

Dems: 36

Reps: 35

Tie: 29

It seemed pretty even between the three options with Maine being R+4. And it did hurt the dems' chances at taking the senate. One less seat functionally up or grabs means one less seat to their totals in the simulator a decent amount of the time, meaning that given near 50-50 nature of the senate predictions, means that assuming we dont assume a wave does most of the work here, we could see a lot of weird scenarios happen. Democrats go from a 50% chance of winning in my simulator to a 36% chance, with the republicans making up most of that ground directly, going from 17% to 35%. 

If we want to look at it simply, I'd say this. If Maine is a tossup, the general distribution of results is 50% D, 33% tie, and 17% R. That's 1/2 of the results being D, 1/3 being ties, and 1/6 being R. Given the GOP controls the vice presidency, that's functionally 50-50. 

Assuming that the dems screw up on the platner replacement (or alternatively, if he stays in), we could see a shift to 33% D, 33% R, and 33% tie. All 3 outcomes are roughly as likely as each other, +/- some small amount of variation. That amounts to a 2/3 chance the republicans functionally maintain the senate. 

So yeah, losing Maine WILL hurt the democrats, and it CAN in theory decide the whole thing assuming all the tossups are functionally independent of each other. Whether you see elections like that is another thing. I think in the real world, error is gonna go one way or another, meaning most will go one way or the other. A stronger blue wave will amount to a bluer map, a weaker one will lead to a redder one. Remember what happened in 2024, my map had all kinda of weird combinations of the 7 swing states going red and blue, but in reality what ended up happening was all went red as trump systemically overperformed. Had harris overperformed, we could've seen the states swing back the other way and we could've seen a 319-219 outcome. The same can happen here. So it really depends what kind of model you believe in. With that said, if wave theory of elections turns out to be accurate, we could see a blowout for either side, with Maine not making much of a difference. But assuming the result is somewhere in between and things are a lot more marginal, and individual error on the state level matters a lot more, yeah, losing Maine will functionally destroy the democrats' current electoral advantage in the senate.

Just something more to think about for anyone thinking of protest voting against the eventually democratic nominee in maine.  

Vote blue no matter who in Maine? Let's have a discussion about this

 So, the reality it setting in for a lot of people that if Graham Platner steps down, he's gonna be replaced with someone. And that process is gonna be relatively undemocratic, and the Maine democratic party is essentially foisting a candidate on the public. This has been a reality I was aware of from the beginning, which is why I have the even handed approach of "yeah platner is a rapist and should drop out, BUT that doesnt mean we should trust the dems here." I mean, the dems have had it out for platner from the get go, and a lot of it IS ideological. They despise "democratic socialists", see them as an invading force within the democratic party, and wanna control their spread within the party as much as humanly possible. It is possible that they'll use this moment to force some moderate down our throats and telling us to 'vote blue no matter who", but I think the American public is finally getting fed up with that. It's like the dam is breaking, and most people online are like NO, I WON'T DO THAT, with them threatening to vote for Collins or stay home if the nominee isn't a close ideological replacement of Platner. hell, even Joy Ann Reid is saying it, and I typically see her as an establishment figure. So this is WILD. The dam is breaking in the democratic party, and we might finally be seeing a generational shift toward progressivism, with people breaking the ultimate taboo within the party of sitting out the election if it doesn't go their way. 

I cant blame them. My own stance on these issues is well documented over the years. I'm spiritually on board with these guys, but I do think this moment is too consequential to history to risk blowing the election. Donald Trump is a tyrant. At least a wanna be tyrant. He wants to destroy democracy and subvert it to his will. A rebellion within the democratic party at this moment in time could empower him to do things far worse than what the dems are doing. With Trump, he's running against a clock, that clock runs out in November, or arguably January when the new congress is seated. He's almost certainly gonna lose the house. He's at risk of losing the senate, with Maine's seat being a potential flip that could contribute to that.

I would say, at minimum, we NEED to win the house. We do that, we can obstruct him. If we have the senate, even better, but I dont think it will matter as long as we dont hold 60 seats due to the filibuster. So...senate control, arguably less important here.

Maine's seat is also unique. Susan Collins is one of the most moderate, inoffensive republicans in the country. A 90s establishment republican. While she will side with trump more than she won't, I dont believe she is a threat to democracy. According to the data, she votes with Trump 95% of the time, but has broken with him on several major issues of consequence. 5% doesn't sound like a lot, but she has put a brake on Trump's more extreme tendencies, and that does matter. The fact is, you NEED to be moderate to keep a red seat in a blue state. 

As far as winning the senate goes, I mean, while I initially saw Maine as one of the easier pick ups, being harder than north carolina, but significantly easier than Ohio, Texas, Iowa, or Alaska, it seems to be polling in line with them. Remember, this is where the Senate stands. Not much changed in the past week, so I'm just going to put up last week's graphics. 

So...the senate is tricky. We can win it, we shouldn't count on it. We technically have paths to win it without maine, but maine could make it easier. If we do take it, Im not sure we can do much with it we can't do without it, assuming we take the house (we only need one chamber to obstruct trump's agenda), Collins is a vote against Trump's most extreme impulses anyway, and I'm not sure a centrist democrat would do much to advance a progressive agenda. 

So...I guess I'll leave it at this: do what you will, vote your conscience. Democracy belongs to the voters, and I'm unclear what stance I would take myself. I do believe we are at a point where we need to weaken the GOP as much as possible to isolate and contain trump's impulses. Maine's senate seat could contribute to this, but I do not believe it is pivotal. An extra seat is an extra vote, but if a moderate obstructs us anyway, it's not gonna matter a whole lot. At the same time, Collins is THEIR moderate. She is basically a "RINO" by modern standards in the eyes of many republicans, and while she votes their party line 95% of the time, that 5% she breaks matters, and often represents principled stands against Trump's worst impulses and bills. With that said, I can reconcile a refusal to vote for the democrat here with not really throwing the entire election cycle to the GOP. Again, our lock on the house is near certain. I have a 96-97% chance that we win the house. Senate, again, its a coin flip. Maine could help, but there are likely other paths if we lose that one. And honestly, the chance that it will all come down to maine, while possible, isn't necessarily likely. Given the nature of polling error and how many seats are tossups, I could envision a situation where either the GOP sweeps the tossups and maintains control, or the democrats sweep them and gain control. In such a situation, Maine itself is only one piece of the puzzle. It helps. And in more marginal outcomes, it CAN mean the difference between retaking the senate and not. 

But yeah. Again, idk. As I said, I think my final advice here is to vote your conscience. Trump is dangerous and should be controlled, but I dont like the democrats possibly screwing people and believe they should face electoral consequences if they handle the maine thing poorly. And let's face it, when platner was the nominee, the amount of "center left" types I saw threatening to vote for Collins was awfully high, so if those guys start pulling that "vote blue no matter who" crap on you, you have zero reason to ever listen to them given how they were acting. Many of them would actively prefer collins over Platner. Again, it's the "uniparty". THe moderates on both sides are closer to each other than others on their side. A lot of moderates would rather collins win than to hand that seat over to a socialist of progressive. Rememeber that. 

So, again, do what you will.