What are Mainers so angry about? We went to the bar to find out.
Grab a barstool at the Narrows Tavern in Waldoboro and the bartender there has a rule: no politics.
The same goes for the Fat Toad’s Pub in Farmingdale. Or the Third Alarm Diner in Sanford.
But sometimes, rules have to be bent.
“We’re not supposed to talk about politics,” said Sue Bundy, 60, from her perch at Fat Toad’s, “but I believe that has incited a lot of people right now.”
Bundy is one of more than a dozen Mainers from across the state who spoke with a reporter at a bar or coffee shop over the last several months and answered a simple question: What, if anything, makes you angry?
A question about anger doesn’t inherently take the conversation in a political direction, but for many, our leaders and the way we pick them is at the top of an infuriating list.
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Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll in June said that the country is headed in the wrong direction. Pew Research Center polling released late last year showed that anger has increasingly worked its way into American politics, often most present among members of whatever party does not occupy the White House.
Anecdotally, Maine headlines make clear the prevalence of anger in day-to-day life.
A June road rage incident in Sanford led to an alleged assault; multiple school board meetings across Maine have devolved into shouting and physical altercations in the last year; a Windsor man was arrested Aug. 14 for threatening to kill federal authorities; and toxic discourse has contributed to high turnover rates among municipal officials across the state.
In quiet coffee shops and bustling watering holes, some Mainers had no problem rattling off a list of grievances so prolonged it could outlast several pints. For others, the question was confounding, and could be answered before even finishing a shot of espresso.
A TONIC FOR DIVIDED TIMES
Back at Fat Toad’s, Bundy identified a few causes of the anger and discontent that seem to permeate our politics: There’s heightened judgment driven by social media; the evaporation of respect for others as a paramount value; there’s an all around turn inward, away from community.
Augusta, where Bundy lives, feels desolate compared to the smaller towns where she raised her kids.
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“There is nothing in Augusta that makes me feel like I belong to this area,” she said.
She has something that keeps her from getting caught up in the anger of the times: a friend. The two met through a mutual drinking buddy who died of ALS in 2024. Her friend sees the world one way, politically speaking, she another.
“There is nothing in Augusta that makes me feel like I belong to this area”
Sue Bundy, 60
“But we respect each other for that,” Bundy said. (The friend didn’t want to be named).
Bundy pointed to a pink plastic cup nestled on a shelf behind the bar — a relic from the end of their mutual friend’s life, when he began losing motor function. Together, she and her friend razzed the bartender and reveled in the memory of their fallen companion.
Out of respect for the bartender’s edict, Bundy wouldn’t say whether she was more conservative or more liberal than her friend. Their “agree-to-disagree” detente is a sort of tonic for the times.
With this friend, where respect prevails, politics could be on the table. That’s not the case with others in Bundy’s circle.
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“People get so upset about it; We’re better off not to even go there,” she said.
‘IT WASN’T HARD FOR OUR FAMILY WHEN WE HAD LESS’
Brandon Grubbs, 32, didn’t exactly follow his bartender’s orders. He couldn’t seem to stay off politics. (The bartender later said that was fine — “you caught him in a good mood.”)
Grubbs grew up “right here,” in Waldoboro, he clarified, not the Narrows Tavern specifically, although maybe the same can’t be said for his young son, who was seated on the barstool to his right.
He had a glee about him, channeled through steely blue eyes, and wore a bleach-white T-shirt with a “1776” insignia and an American flag styled in ammunition on the sleeve.
To Grubbs’ left sat his older brother, who didn’t want to give a name. They both fish and lobster and lean conservative but hold little regard for the Republicans in power or the government in general.
“You got the left wing and the right wing — it’s the same bird,” his brother said.
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83-year-old Fred of Alfred chats with Tabatha Ross, a bartender at Bentley’s Saloon in Arundel on Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Fred comes to Bentley’s a couple of times each week to chat with friends and have a couple of “Madawaska Martinis,” a combination of Bloody Mary mix and a Papst Blue Ribbon lager. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
They’re not unaware of Trump’s self-dealing ways. But they see him as the cunning benefactor of a rigged system that preordains winners and losers.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” Grubbs quipped.
Fuel, bait and housing have all gotten more expensive, they agreed. They got worked up blaming immigrants for the housing shortage and the government for increased fees and taxes.
“I like Trump, but he’s doing the same as the rest of ’em,” Grubbs said as he made his way through a second Twisted Tea.
“Yeah, he said no new wars,” his brother chimed in.
They talked in circles for a while about what’s hard these days, like doctors listing symptoms trying to spot a pattern that might yield a diagnosis. They landed on social media.
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Platforms like Facebook, where the brothers post photos of their boats, their halibut, their kids and the occasional right-wing meme, only exacerbate feelings of isolation and separation.
“Before social media, we used to have cookouts. We used to have bonfires and camping and family events,” Grubbs’ brother said. “There used to be a lot more of a bond with your family. Now everybody’s busy all the time.”
“It wasn’t hard for our family when we had less,” he added.
SOME LAY LOW
To some extent, the anger and frustration harbored by people like Brandon Grubbs and his brother against the governing status quo fueled the rise of Trump, a one-time political outsider who assailed that ruling elite. During his second presidency, the left has retorted in kind, with anger of their own.
Anger coded the opening salvo last August of Graham Platner’s meteoric Senate campaign.
“We have watched this state become essentially unlivable for working class people,” Platner said, stooped over the center console of a skiff in his home harbor in Sullivan. “And, uh, it makes me deeply angry.”
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As for his fall from grace, spurred on by credible rape allegations he’s continued to deny?
“That was really disappointing to me,” said Anna, 27, taking a break from work at Arabica Coffee House in Portland.
Kate Greene loves that Maine is one big small town and she loves the ocean. The winters are long but part of the charm.
When the Midcoast resident joined the roller derby team, she found her people.
“We’re a bunch of misfits,” she said.
It’s ICE — not winter’s scourge, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement — that makes Greene angry.
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“ICE is just so like quintessentially not Maine, you know what I mean?” Greene, 45, said on the other side of Arabica. “It’s like this horrible invasive infestation of values.”
Greene’s responsible for her young son and her mother. She feels badly that she hasn’t been very active in protesting ICE.
“I have a lot of responsibilities and I kind of need to lay low,” she said.
In Wrapped Up Coffee House in Hallowell, Linnea Brunvand, a nurse who lives in Portland, said it’s made her angry to watch patients struggle to navigate the healthcare system. Trump — and most every other recent president — has promised to simplify the American healthcare system, but that never seems to happen.
“I just try to assume that everyone’s good, everything is good and it’s going to be good at some point, some day. Even thought I know it’s not.”
Anna, 27
She’s watched older patients fumble with technology, others wait months for important medical equipment, and still others go without medication that their health insurance doesn’t cover. Across the coffee shop, another customer said she curses Trump in her head every time she watches the meter tick upward at the gas pump.
And back at Arabica, Anna, who asked to be identified only be her first name, said she used to feel a lot of anger.
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“That was super unproductive,” she said, recalling the penalties she’d rack up during hockey games.
But when she sees the homeless adolescents who are not allowed in the shelter in her neighborhood because they’ve been too disruptive, sadness wells within her.
“I just try to assume that everyone’s good, everything is good and it’s going to be good at some point, some day,” she said. “Even thought I know it’s not.”
PAY THE PLUMBER
Richard Burke, 56, has a refrain.
“Nobody wants to pay the plumber.”
He would know. For 38 years, he’s owned Perfect Plumbing & Heating in York County.
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The cost of living is front and center in his life. He said he leans conservative, but pointed out that Democratic-backed policies like heat pump subsidies have brought about a noticeable windfall for his business.
Still, federal statistics show the cost of living in the northeast, measured by the price of things like medical care, fuel, groceries and rent, was up 4.1% last month compared to July 2025.
That costs Burke and his customers.
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He just paid $19,000 to put a new engine in one of his work trucks.
As for what makes him angry?
A customer called about a broken heat pump. The $250 minimum fee to send a tech out plus the charge for a new remote, which cost $200 wholesale, brought the final bill to $544. The customer called back irate.
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“What do you want me to do? I got to make some money off you. How am I going to eat?” Burke said, working through a steak at the Sanford Applebee’s on an August afternoon, a luxury watch glinting from his left wrist.
The rising cost of living has slowed business.
“Everybody’s getting the shaft,” he said.
83-year-old Fred, left, of Alfred chats with regulars while enjoying a “Madawaska Martini” at Bentley’s Saloon in Arundel on Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Fred comes to Bentley’s a couple of times each week to talk with friends and have a couple of “Madawaska Martinis,” a combination of Bloody Mary mix and Papst Blue Ribbon lager. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
‘IT IS WHAT IT IS’
Don’t accuse Fred of drinking a michelada.
The clam broth-tomato juice combo used in the drink is too reminiscent of New York style clam chowder, which is also tomato-based. By virtue of association with the debased form of chowder, the michelada offends the sensibilities of this Mainer.
“Michelada is not to be mentioned,” he said decisively when a reporter asked whether that was his drink of choice.
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Instead, Fred’s drinking three fingers-worth of Bloody Mary mix topped with chilled Pabst Blue Ribbon on a sweltering day at Bentley’s Saloon, a biker bar in Arundel.
There’s a lot that Fred, who asked to be identified only by his first name, has an opinion on.
There’s Dr. Anthony Fauci (“that guy was a fuckin’ liar”); the Democratic Socialists of America platform (“That’s sick. That’s not American”); and the Portland Press Herald (“it has become a mouthpiece for progressive Democrats”).
Fred is perched on a corner stool at the bar, suspenders taught on the shoulders of an oversize button-up with a belt cinched around his waist. A walker with tennis balls on the feet waits in the corner.
“I’m angry about the fact that this country is so separated,” he said.
His voice eventually softens. He explains that his son and daughter-in-law, both liberals, won’t go out of their way to see him. And at 83, Fred is too physically limited to attend family holidays.
“It’s sad, because I don’t have much time left,” he said.
“It is what it is.”
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Tagged: community, cost of living, politics
Reuben, a Bowdoin College graduate and former Press Herald intern, returned to our newsroom in July 2025 to cover Indigenous communities in Maine as part of a Report for America partnership. Reuben was. More by Reuben M. Schafir
