Dear Susan, Thank you, and if I may...
A letter to my US Senator
As I am moving through New Europe this month, I am learning more about both my own country through the lenses of people here who are confused and concerned. Many of the journalists and other soldiers for civic society in the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and of course Ukraine, helped develop their understanding of the possibilities for meaningful change through exchanges with US organizations and experts. This includes the Fulbright Program.
Thanks for reading Notes from New Europe! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Today I heard about some additional cutbacks (there are probably more suitable words), and I feel prompted to share a letter that I sent to one of my US Senators: Susan Collins. Senator Collins is in a particularly powerful position, as Republican who as of yet has not fully fallen in line with some of the undemocratic actions of the last ten weeks.
I have no expectations. To paraphrase Michael Eric Dyson: While I am not optimistic, I choose hopeful. I see an opportunity for her to have a Weicker moment. Or even better, a Margaret Chase Smith moment. I hope that moment comes this month, as last week she stood up to the Muskovites in her role as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, initiated a letter to the White House, signed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s senior Democrat, asserting that the administration had violated the six-month spending law approved by Congress earlier this month.
They pointed to a memo Mr. Trump had sent to Congress on Monday that declared that only a portion of the $12.4 billion designated as emergency funding in the legislation would actually be spent, “because I do not concur that the added spending is truly for emergency needs.”
Notes from New Europe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Here is the letter I sent to her office:
March 19, 2025
Senator Susan Collins
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
+1 (202) 224-2523
Dear Senator Collins,
This is both a thank you letter and a request for your help.
THANK YOU. I am writing to you from Bulgaria, and more broadly from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, where I am engaging with people who are fighting every day to build better communities, better family lives, better nations, and a better Europe. I am able to work with people here because of the support from the U.S. Fulbright program. Which has had your support and needs it more than ever. (I was a Fulbright Scholar investigating Kremlin hybrid warfare tactics with for 2023-2024, and now return to the region frequently to build cross border efforts to support civic society).
I am a career journalist who often operates at the intersection of journalism, academia, and business. At my core I am a working class New Englander who has had the privilege of speaking with all sorts of people, from U.S. Presidents to fellow janitors when I cleaned floors to help pay for my college education. No year in my work has taught me more about the need to gather in curiosity to problem solve and learn and teach than my time in Europe.
My family has been migrating toward Maine for a the last century. Napoli to New Haven to Worcester/Boston/Hartford to Portland. My cousins and I are from here even though we are from away. I am not a host or someone with a byline, so you will not know my name, though to be clear, I am writing you as your constituent. I am going to shamelessly share two articles about me for context.
https://usm.maine.edu/news/fulbright-scholar-to-tackle-journalism-in-bulgaria/
I also thank you for your speech last week in which you did what too few journalists in the US have been able to: articulate clearly and deliberately the reality of Putin’s war of aggression on Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, and civic society across the region and, to be clear, the world. This paragraph in particular caught my eye:
“If Vladimir Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, as several of my colleagues have pointed out, he will not stop there. He will continue to pursue his dream, his goal, of recreating the former Soviet Union. He has made that crystal clear. In my judgment, he would most likely seize Moldova next, again invade Georgia, as he did in 2008, threaten the Baltic states, and menace Poland and Finland. The best way to ensure that the United States is not drawn into a larger regional war in Europe, which would directly threaten American troops, is by helping Ukraine defend itself against this unprovoked invasion.”
Let me share one more link:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158247561
As promised: a request. Please do all you can to support the Fulbright program in these difficult times. I understand what I need to do in Maine to support communities from Presque Isle to the Piscataqua better from the what I have learned from Bulgarians (and Ukrainians, and Slovakia, and the Czech Republic…). I would be honored to meet with you in Maine or D.C. to discuss all of this after I return home in mid April.
Sincerely yours,
A concerned motivated citizen
¿Do you have a letter to send to someone who may draw a line at this critical moment? Or perhaps you see, as I do, a need to let Senator Collins know that the fight to save civic society is not, at its core, a political fight—though there is a political aspect to the effort, and she is in a position that few others are in. I invite you to chime in.
https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact
