Dear Editor:

My parents taught me the meaning of conservatism and I have stood alongside people of every political stripe. We disagreed about plenty, yet we still got along. That is the conservatism I learned to respect, and I no longer recognize some of what is done in its name.

Edmund Burke described society as a partnership between the dead, the living, and those not yet born. Scripture offers a similar lesson: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28). We inherit courts, churches, schools, and town meetings that we did not build, and we owe it to our grandchildren to preserve them and pass them on intact.

Populist politics borrows the flag and the language of faith yet treats nearly every institution as an enemy to be defeated. Judges who rule the wrong way are smeared, election officials are threatened, and loyalty to one man takes precedence over loyalty to principle.

James Madison designed a government in which ambition would check ambition, recognizing that men are not angels. A conservative who cheers unchecked power when his own side holds it has abandoned that principle. The test is simple: Would you accept the same powers in the hands of your opponents?

A free society also depends on private virtue. Politics built on contempt and grievance erodes honesty, self-control, and respect for our neighbors. The damage spreads into churches, civic groups, workplaces, universities, and even our families. These are the very places where people learn to work together despite their differences.

Many who follow the populist banner have legitimate grievances. Those grievances deserve to be heard and addressed through patient, lawful reform, not the demolition of the institutions that hold us together.

How should a conservative vote? Matthew 7:16 offers this advice “By their fruits ye shall know them.”  Here in Maine, that means asking of every officeholder, Senator Collins included, whether they have defended these conservative principles when it mattered or abandoned them under political pressure. When the record falls short, voting for change is not a betrayal of conservatism. It may be its most faithful expression.

Fred W. Nehring

Boothbay