A lesson from Ancient Greece: Voters have the power to demand better | Steve Collins
I just got back from a trip to Athens, one of the birthplaces of democracy, where I stood on a rocky hill named Pynyx that once hosted citizen gatherings for fierce debates and pivotal votes.
At these all-male meetings, those Greeks weren’t always kind to one another. Most famously, they agreed to kill Socrates for corrupting the youth with his incessant questioning. Those of us in journalism aren’t especially sympathetic to a philosopher’s enemies.
Another time, after a rebellion in the capital of the island of Lesbos during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian Assembly agreed to execute every adult man in the rebel city of Mytilene and enslave all of its women and children — a decision its members thought better of the next day when, thankfully, they called the order off.
On the hill overlooking the Parthenon, where history sits heavy on the rocky ruins, it was hard for me to avoid thinking that those of us lucky enough to have a say in who should lead the world’s most powerful nation ought to take the job a little more seriously.
No, we don’t have to stand for hours in an open-air chamber in baking heat listening to neighbors spout off after clambering up on the speaker’s platform (a little-visited spot today, despite still standing after 2,500 years). We just need to pay attention occasionally and vote as if the future depends on our choices, which it does.
This year in Maine, we have to evaluate a campaign of historical significance. We get to decide whether to send Republican Sen. Susan Collins back to Capitol Hill for a sixth consecutive term.
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Collins is a hardworking leader who has found ways to pour money into Maine projects during her 30 years in the Senate. At the same time, she’s done little to stand up to the nation’s worst-ever president.
My sense is that Collins is going to have a hard time holding on to enough votes to fend off Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. People are fed up with Trump — and Collins will feel the fallout.
In Connecticut this week, Democrats held a four-way primary in a Hartford-centric congressional district where Rep. John Larson held office since his election in 1998.
At age 78, even voters who supported his liberal politics were ready to see him go. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who beat him in the primary, said, “The goal is to shake things up in Washington, D.C., and we are just getting started.”
The notion that propelled Bronin to victory — that we need to rattle the workings of the nation’s capital — has at least as much going for it in Maine as it does in Connecticut.
Most of us feel that something isn’t right these days. It’s not just that President Trump seems obsessed with kooky political sideshows and the unnecessary, unpopular waging of war. It’s that our representatives, Sen. Collins chief among them, aren’t holding a corrupt president accountable.
Which means they’re not doing much to help us lead better lives.
The Athenians who gathered regularly on a slope overlooking their city understood that they held the power to make changes that would affect their daily lives. They acted with the knowledge that had nobody to blame for mistakes but themselves.
That is still true today. If we want a different U.S. Senate, a different political landscape, that’s up to us.
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Steve Collins became an opinion columnist for the Maine Trust for Local News in April of 2025. A journalist since 1987, Steve has worked for daily newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Maine and served. More by Steve Collins
