The D.C. consensus is becoming clear, the gerontocrats, led by Chuck Schumer, are on the verge of crushing the pesky “viral fantasy” of progressive Maine lobsterman turned U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Or are they? More on that below.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been largely AWOL from politics this year, seemingly lost after Trump’s 2024 electoral win.
But nothing stirs the ancient Democratic establishment leader like the need to crush a promising progressive campaign for U.S. Senate so when Bernie Sanders’ supported war veteran Graham Platner started raising millions and getting called “The Maine Mamdani”, Schumer lept strollered into action and drafted 77-year-old Governor Janet Mills into the race.
Note the similarity of tactics the Democrat centrists are using to “bad jacket” Katie Porter after her own-goal interview.
The Democrat Gerontocrats War on Graham Platner in Maine
This is a race I’ve been meaning to cover for months. Graham Platner is a very appealing, Bernie Sanders endorsed candidate. Naturally, Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) have drafted the barely popular 77 year old former governor to run against him.
From Sanders’ endorsement:
“Graham is a Marine and Army National Guard veteran, an oyster farmer, and a proud member of America’s working class. He’s a Mainer through and through, and he is building a movement strong enough to take on the oligarchy that is making Maine unaffordable for all except a privileged few,” Sanders wrote in his announcement, adding that “we need senators in Washington who are prepared to take on the billionaire class and fight for working people.”
Didn’t jibe with Chuck Schumer’s ancient instincts though:
Maine Gov. Janet Mills joined her state’s crowded Democratic Senate primary as the establishment favorite on Tuesday, aiming to flip Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ seat in a pivotal midterm year.
Democrats view the seat as one of their top pickup opportunities — the only in a state Kamala Harris won in 2024 — and Mills is among a few top-tier candidates Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer aggressively recruited to run this cycle. But first the term-limited governor must contend with a competitive primary against breakout candidate Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who announced he has more than $3 million in the bank and already received the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
…
Mills, who won her seat by wide margins in her last two races, is 77 years old, making her five years Collins’ senior at a time when Americans are grappling with debates about the age of their politicians. If elected, she would be the oldest first-year senator ever. Platner is 41 and unlikely to leave the race for Mills
Common Dreams made the case for Platner vs Mills:
Platner has centered his campaign on naming “the enemy” shared by Mainers and Americans from all walks of life: not immigrants, transgender people, or other frequent targets of the Trump administration, but the oligarchy. He’s also been unapologetically outspoken in his condemnation of the US-backed Israeli assault on Gaza and over the weekend said that should he win a Senate seat, “there will be consequences” for those who have led federal immigration agents’ violent incursion in US cities.
Platner has garnered endorsements and enthusiasm from lawmakers including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who recently criticized reports that Schumer was pushing for a Mills run—and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who called his campaign “pretty impressive” and “killer” recently.
He’s also proven to be a formidable fundraiser, pulling in more than $4 million since launching his campaign in August, and has spoken to overflow crowds in cities and towns across Maine.
Recent polling has shown Platner outperforming Mills by 21 points among Trump voters, 13 points among voters aged 18-44, and 10 points in rural parts of northern and western Maine.
The Social Media Battle Lines Were Clear
I’ve been following this race as it built up to Mills’ entre on social media and saw some good tussles but nothing especially surprising.
Ryan Grim, ex-Intercept now with Drop Site News, was doing battle with various mid-tier “DC creature”
DC is such a cesspool and all its creatures loathe Platner https://t.co/4vwK3h5Qj3 pic.twitter.com/YsvU8xFN8x
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 19, 2025
More on this particular DC creature’s world view as self-presented on X.com
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) October 21, 2025
Grim has been an active online surrogate for Platner, here he is throwing down with Politico who were very eager to carry the DSCC’s water (and have already declared victory for Mills over Platner):
Extremely deceptive from Politico here. Another Reddit user (!) said that Maine lobsterman are “drug addicted maniacs.”
Platner then responded saying, “They aren’t. Some are, the majority are solid folks making a living. I work on the water and know a whole bunch of lobstermen… https://t.co/p2NRngYizu
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 19, 2025
The Politico covered the story carried water for the Schumer-Mills attack machine in their newsletter on the 18th:
THE MAINE PROBLEM: Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is trying to pivot away from the fallout of his divisive online posts that endorsed political violence (Washington Post), minimized rape in the military (Politico) and disparaged police (CNN)…
Note that each outlet (Politico, Washington Post, and CNN) was fed a different angle to maximize impact and increase interest from each outlet.
Planter responded on social media:
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) October 17, 2025
Graham Platner: Hey y’all, it’s Graham here. As you’ve probably seen, there’s a story that’s broken about comments I made on Reddit in an earlier part of my life. As I read through them, I read things that I absolutely do not agree with. I read through and I see things that, words and statements that I abhor. I also see the trajectory of my life.
When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the army for another year. I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made, the things that I think are least defensible, that I wouldn’t even try to defend, come from that time.
I had spent the bulk of my 20s in the infantry, deploying overseas, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The infantry was a very male-dominated place. It’s a very masculine world. When I was in, women weren’t allowed in the infantry. It’s changed now, and that’s a good thing.
But when I got out, I still had the crude humor, the dark… dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.
I made comments that I’m not happy about, that I do not agree with, but they came from a time and place in my life. And as I read through the comments that were released, I can see myself changing. My language gets less crude, my thoughts and my feelings get a lot less kind of rough around the edges. I do get almost more disillusioned though, and it’s important to know that this was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply. I got out of the army in 2012. I had PTSD.
I had depression. I had all of the things that come with serving in a war, in two wars, that I eventually began to not believe in at all. It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned. very alienated and very isolated. And I think like a lot of people, I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation.
It wasn’t until I found actual community that that all went away. And the reason that I stopped posting on Reddit around 2020 and 2021 is because that was the point in my life where I had found this. I had moved back to my hometown. I’d found community. I’d started a business.
I’d met someone to fall in love with. I’d been able to really begin to feel connected again. And not only did it let me feel connected, it also gave me a lot of hope.
I had spent years being entirely isolated. and feeling very, very angry about the system that had made me go through that experience.
Coming back to Maine, moving back to my hometown, reconnecting with the community that I’m from, building real friendships, building real networks, real relationships with people, that helped cut my disillusion. I went from thinking that people were bad to knowing that people are good.
I went from thinking that there was no hope to having nothing but hope. A hope that is rooted in the fact that it was in my community here in Sullivan, Maine that I got to come home and build a nice life. That all changed for me, but it took me a long time to get there and it was a very long journey. And along that journey, I was in different places that I’m not in now. I had different feelings that I don’t have now.
I had different thoughts and opinions that I certainly don’t have now. But I am very proud of the person I am today. And it was that whole journey that got me here. And while I won’t defend things I said in the past, I will just say that if it wasn’t for that entire journey, I would not be who I am today. And I’m incredibly proud of who I am today.
And so for those of you who have read these things and been offended, have read these things and seen someone that you don’t recognize, I am deeply sorry. It’s something that I see someone that I don’t recognize either, not in who I am today. It is somebody that I do recognize though, somebody who is struggling, somebody who is having a very difficult time settling into a society that he felt betrayed by and left behind by after having to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am.
I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today. And I just want to say thank you all very much for your time.
I included his whole statement in text because I couldn’t find it anywhere and found it full of interesting messaging that isn’t breaking through into secondary coverage. Which isn’t that big a deal when Platner’s video has more reach than most of the outlets covering him by an order of magnitude.
Back to Politico’s coverage:
Whether Platner can turn the corner remains a question. Playbook obtained screenshots of additional archived Reddit posts from September 2021 in which he calls “some” Maine lobstermen “drug addicted maniacs” and a “few” who were “pieces of shit … absolutely terrible people.” He added that “lots of guys are assholes, some are strung out or drunks, and some are lazy,” and that “the future of lobstering is pretty uncertain” on account of regulations and global warming.
In response to a user who said they had a dream of becoming a lobsterman, asking users to “crush my dreams with reality,” Platner, posting with the Reddit username “P-Hustle,” said “the majority are solid folks making a living. I work on the water and know a whole bunch of lobstermen, and only a few are pieces of shit. Granted, those few are absolutely terrible people, but it’s not remotely the bulk of guys fishing.”
Lobstermen, who number in the thousands, are a political force in an essential Maine industry.
Yesterday, Platner’s political director, former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, stepped down, according to the Bangor Daily News’ Billy Kobin. ”While I am empathetic to Graham’s experiences and respect his personal journey and growth, I cannot overlook the volume and nature of his past comments, many of which were made as an adult, not as a young man,” McDonald wrote. She was a lobsterman.
A spokesperson for Platner did not respond to a request for comment on the lobstermen posts.
Platner Campaign Does an Info-Dump, Maybe a Limited Hangout?
The Platner campaign pre-emptively revealed this doozy on Pod Save America:
Schumer's slime squad in full effect. Shitlibs do NOT want this guy in the Senate https://t.co/oA0bn0mSY0
— Thoht, Doge of Wisdom (@KidNate) October 21, 2025
The pre-emptive reveal of potential opposition is an advanced PR move you rarely see from losing campaigns (I’m thinking Howard Dean, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren) so this is a good sign for Platner supporters, I guess.
I’m not embedding the whole Pod Save America episode, just linking, watch if you’re into that kind of thing, but here are the quotes Axios picked up, which illustrates which talking points made it into the MSM narrative, but again Pod Save America > Axios in terms of audience size:
Platner’s campaign shared video with Pod Save America of him singing shirtless that exposed a skull tattoo on his chest that resembles the “Totenkopf,” a symbol used by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS).
The move was intended to get ahead of opposition research, and the GOP’s Senate campaign arm seized on the images, accusing Platner of having a “Nazi tattoo.”
Driving the news: Platner said in an interview with Tommy Vietor of Pod Save America that was released on Monday that the video was from his brother’s wedding, where he lip-synced Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.”
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner told Vietor, adding that he got the tattoo in Croatia while deployed and was “very inebriated.” Platner said he and his fellow Marines chose “a terrifying looking skull and crossbones.”
What he’s saying: In the years since, Platner said, he joined the Army National Guard, where he said he “got a security clearance and a full screen” to be on the detail for the ambassador to Afghanistan. The Army bans tattoos that are “extremist, racist, sexist, or otherwise indecent.”
Platner said that at no point “did anybody ever once say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi.’ It never came up until we got wind that in the opposition research somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo.”
Zoom out: An ADL spokesperson said in a statement provided to Axios that it “appears” to be a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo, which they described as “troubling,” if true.But they added, “[w]e do understand that sometimes people get tattoos without understanding their hateful association. In those cases, the bearer should be asked whether they repudiate its hateful meaning.”
A Surprising Twist in DC Insider Reaction
Like everyone else, I’m processing information as I come across it which isn’t necessarily in a linear, time of publication fashion. Please indulge me in telling the story in the order I learned it.
So I mentioned above that Politico was declaring Platner a dead letter. Here’s that piece headlined “Democrats Keep Falling for Political Fantasies. When Will They Learn?” it’s by Jonathan Martin, best known for chronicling the 2012 Obama-Romney Race and his 2022 declaration of permanent victory for Biden over Trump “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future” which is just as prescient as it sounds.
Some morsels for flavor:
Will Democrats ever learn to stop swooning?
I refer, as you may have guessed, to the case of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and the rinse-wash-repeat pattern that has become all too familiar for the party in the digital age.
It goes something like this: Political outsider or mostly new name mounts statewide campaign with online video that leans heavily on compelling biography or powerful oratory, out-of-state liberal hobbyists quickly fall in love and fork over money, and journalists rush to profile the latest heartthrob before inevitable disappointment when the candidate loses or, well, becomes John Fetterman.
Platner is the latest example.
I am glad he mentioned Fetterman, possibly the most disillusioning political figure since Obama himself, but on to today’s tale.
So when I saw that former Biden Press Secretary turned MSNBC host Jen Psaki was hosting Pete Buttiegieg’s she-svengali Lis Smith to discuss the race, I was expecting more of the same.
But it turns out Smith (much like the elements of Obama world who are vocally supporting Mamdani in New York) smells a winner in Platner, and shocking so does Psaki.
Check this out:
Jen Psaki: Just today, Governor Mills of Maine announced she was going to get into the Senate race at the urging of Chuck Schumer clearly and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is the body that oversees all of this from the National Party. And so she’s entered the race as of today, she’s joining a couple of other candidates who are already in the race.
The one who’s getting the most buzz is a guy named Graham Platner, an oyster man, which you gotta love that piece of his bio. And he goes around and he speaks, in human-speak (emphasis mine, Nat), about a range of issues, including the economy, which he’s relentlessly focused on.
…He’s got the thing, the quality that good candidates have, that’s a great riff on freedom that ties together cost of living issues issues people care about deeply. Um, and he’s just feels very relatable. He’s also 41 years old, uh, and Governor Mills is 77 years old. So this is a big age question in this race.
But I do wanna say for Governor Mills, ’cause this is the argument people of her, her supporters will make, she is very popular. I think she has about a 51% approval rating. Susan Collins has 14%, and (Mills) has been governing a state where she’s been elected twice, where the population is growing older and also isn’t quite as progressive as some people who live outside of Maine might think.
Then they play a video of Trump going after Mills on and she replies “See you in court.” Psaki also notes Mills won that case. But back to Psaki:
So I share that because her announcement video was cringe. And she seemed very old and out of touch, which is a contrast to Platner…
…There’s this obsession by Chuck Schumer and others in Washington. I realize I live here with going with the old same playbook that worked 20 years ago, and not recognizing that politics in the country change, and there are people who don’t come from the political world who might be worth giving a shot, and instead he seems to be putting his finger on the scale here. But what do you think?
Lis Smith: Yeah, so he has that obsession. Um, there’s an obsession right now with Democratic primary voters, especially to not nominate super old candidates. to sort of say goodbye to the Gerontocracy. There’s also an obsession among Democratic primary voters to nominate people from communities, people who aren’t just like lifetime lawyer-lobbyists, politicians, you know, people with unconventional backgrounds, uh, like Graham Platner.
And to your point, you know, you said he has a thing. I’d say he’s got Riz, you know, he’s got the sauce. Janet Mills has a backbone, but my issue isn’t with primaries. Right. I think primaries are good things when you can strengthen everybody. And you end up being a better general election candidate when you have a primary.
What my issue is with here is one: Telling a 77-year-old elected official to not to retire, but instead to go for a promotion when voters are saying, please no more of this after what happened with Joe Biden.
And my second issue is that the DSEC is putting their thumb on the scale for her, as you mentioned. …There are other candidates in there, but I do not think the DSEC is doing anyone any favors, let alone Janet Mills, by putting their thumb on the scale here, because let’s be real, Chuck Schumer is one of the least popular elected officials in American politics today.
Drops mic, as they used to say in the Obama era.
Plot Twist: Alt Media Hates Platner’s Response
Taylor Lorenz, publisher of the Discourse Blog is an outlier by any definition, but one well worth following. Here’s the first graph of her wiki for those unfamiliar:
Taylor Lorenz (born 1984 or 1985[1]) is an American journalist and technology columnist who covers Internet culture. She has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Business Insider, and The Daily Mail. In 2023, she published a book called Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. In 2024, Lorenz left the Washington Post following an internal investigation after Lorenz posted an image on Instagram labeling president Joe Biden as a “war criminal”. Lorenz subsequently began publishing a newsletter called User Mag as well as a podcast called Power User.
Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: I don’t know if Graham Platner is a secret Nazi, or just a fucking moron. I suspect it’s more the latter, but frankly, there’s enough ambiguity and weirdness coming from the Planter camp that it’s hard to say for certain. What I do know is that, if the past couple of days are any indication, the troop-turned-oysterman-turned-ostensibly leftist wunderkind candidate is in pretty big trouble, entirely of his own making. Because while having a large SS Deathshead tattoo is kind of a campaign problem in and of itself, being a whiny dickhead about it — like Platner has been — is just digging up, stupid.
…
Discussing both his tattoo, and history of Reddit shitposting, he stressed that “the idea that a person cannot evolve and grow from years ago is pretty laughable to the average human being.”Broadly, I agree with Platner here. People do change and mature and evolve, and having some grace for those transformations is just part of being a decent person. But, at least when it comes to his ink, there’s little sign of any attempt to evolve or grow, or even acknowledge how big of a fuck up getting the tattoo was in the first place.
Go back to the part of the (Pod Save America) interview where Platner and Vietor discuss the tattoo. At no point does Platner apologize for—or even really acknowledge that—a large SS Totenkopf tattoo can be pretty traumatic to see, even if (if!!) it was inked out of ignorance, rather than malice. There’s no “sorry.” No nothing. Instead, both Platner and Vietor go out of their way to blame “opposition research” and “political reporters” for having the chutzpah to point out that Nazis are bad and having a Nazi tattoo is also bad.
…as it turns out, there’s reason to be skeptical of Platner’s repeated claims of ignorance. In the hours following the initial furor from Platner’s Pod Save sesh, two separate reports emerged which suggested that Platner at least knew, if not celebrated, the origin of his tattoo. First, this, from his now-ex-political director and former Main State Senator Genevieve McDonald:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) October 22, 2025
Schwartz then links to and quotes from this Jewish Insider post while noting it’s a “right wing” (ie very zionist) outlet:
But according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the “death’s head” symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.
“He said, ‘Oh, this is my Totenkopf,’” the former acquaintance told Jewish Insider recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “He said it in a cutesy little way.”
The exchange occurred in 2012 at Tune Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill where Platner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended The George Washington University on the G.I. bill, according to the former acquaintance. He would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, the former acquaintance recalled.
Schwartz closes with this:
Ultimately, then, Platner’s sin and that of his most enthusiastic enablers is less that he got the tattoo in the first place (although, that too) and more a question of how he’s behaved since. Fleeing to a friendly podcast to play victim before even saying you’re getting rid of the thing doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the Senate candidate’s decision-making skills. Who knows—maybe Platner will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and continue to run the kind of gritty, progressive campaign that elevated his profile in the first place. Or maybe he’ll do what he’s done so far: ignore the hurt his tattoo has caused and move forward without any real contrition. Either way, I wouldn’t hold my breath for an apology anytime soon.
Schwartz also brings up the appalling Young Republicans racist and avowedly pro-nazi chat leaks that came out last week. Per Politico:
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.
Frankly, this is a classic example of the “political blender” which I have attributed to the cognitive dissonance caused by the zionist genocide in Gaza.
The GOP seems to be actual nazis and one of the more compelling Democratic candidate may or may not be a crypto-nazi.
Before October 7, 2023, I personally had a long-standing zero tolerance policy for nazi iconography learned in the independent music scene of the 1980s, these days I’m not sure WTF to make of it.
UPDATE: Commenter DJG, Reality Czar pointed out the obvious thing that both Schwartz and I missed (embarrassingly on my part since I’ve known it for a long time): nazi iconography ceased to be verboten in the “Democratic West” in 2022 when Ukrainian nazis suddenly became “our heroes”.
This twitter exchange between the progressive Emma Vigeland and an X.com non-blue check poster with a mid-sized following I’m not familiar with is more elegant:
The same people who will malign Platner for this are also big Ukraine supporters and Ukraine is a neo-fascist state controlled by neo-nazi paramilitaries. Why did we stop seeing photos of Ukrainian soldiers everywhere? Bc almost everytime they had nazi tattoos or paraphernalia https://t.co/B3c4kOWI20 pic.twitter.com/7LxqtsNuvH
— Geaux Tigers 🐯 (@stealyoredbull) October 22, 2025
How Did the Center Win Again, Anyway?
But, back to the broader American electoral context, where skilled analysts can trundle along like it’s 2012 and none of this is happening.
This Ettingermentum News’ piece “The Center is Choking” on the structural and generational conflict in the Democratic party teases a point I want to close with:
For as long as any of us have known, the Democratic Party has been controlled by its moderate wing with a grip that the best efforts of the left have been unable to break. A historic anti-war and anti-establishment effort in 2008 gave us a White House led by Rahm Emanuel.
Unprecedented progressive mobilization during Trump 1.0 culminated in the nomination of Joe Biden. To the extent that any of the left-wing organizing and energy of the 21st century has led to anything, it has been entirely on the margins—some lip service here, a few regulatory appointments there, and, at best, an acknowledgement that it is a valued “junior partner” in the coalition.
Such a track record would have been deeply sobering for the left’s effort to expand its influence even if the results in 2024 had fit entirely within its narrative. As for what actually happened last year, the wing may as well have been sentenced to death. Quite unlike his first victory, Trump’s second win didn’t come against a literal Clinton in the aftermath of a populist campaign. It came against a San Francisco liberal that he had spent the entire fall branding as a radical leftist lunatic—i.e., a seemingly clear ideological mandate. It didn’t seem to matter that Harris had run hard to the center or that the Democratic Party at large had given the leading evangelists of moderation control over a trillion dollars in ad spending. At the end of the day, it was said, Donald Trump said that Kamala Harris was for “they/them.” Then he won, and the left died.
Voters seemed to be on board with this narrative, if only at the beginning. In the first month of Trump’s second presidency, Gallup found a massive surge in the number of Democrats who said that they wanted the party to become more moderate. But in the time since then, hardly anything has gone according to the center’s plan.
…
What accounts for this reversal? A lot of it has to do with timely shifts by the left faction of the party, which has finally begun to play to its own strengths. But none of what they have accomplished would have been possible without a generational fumble on the part of the party’s center, which has so far been completely unable to adapt to the current political environment.
Also check out his piece “The Official 2026 Midterm Outlook: Schumer and Jeffries Need to Resign Immediately.” A taste:
Prior to Trump’s election in 2016, no political party had won a trifecta and lost everything in the span of only one term since the Democrats in 1892. Since then, it has happened twice, and it could very well happen once again.
…Recent history gives us no guarantee as to how next year’s elections will turn out, even with a sitting president as unpopular as Trump is today.
…
The good news for Democrats is that, like Republicans before them, the reasons why they are underperforming are obvious. For Republicans in the leadup to 2022, it was always clear that they were being brought down by their loyalty to a still-unpopular Trump and, later, the Dobbs decision, both of which kept voters from evaluating the election as a simple referendum on Joe Biden.For Democrats this year, their obvious problem is the simple fact that they have done absolutely nothing to break from Biden since the end of his failed presidency. And as far as the midterms are concerned, this failure is at its most salient in the continued reign of the party’s two congressional leaders: Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
…
In every instance of a wave election this century, the parties that have achieved them held one thing in common: they were always led by figures who hadn’t just governed alongside an unpopular president.…there is only one example this century of an out party doing what Democrats are doing now with Congressional leaders: the Republican Party of 2022. By keeping a highly unpopular Mitch McConnell as the face of their party.
Chuck Schumer as Mitch McConnell in “Old Age Ninja Mutant Turtles 2” isn’t really a very compelling title for a summer blockbuster, is it?
It’s interesting to note as we close out today’s Coffee Break that as the Obama “rizz” fades, he and some elements of his oldteam are opportunistic enough to get behind Mamdani, just as Lis Smith and Jen Psaki are backing Platner over Graham.
Winds of change or just another scam in the making?
Only time will tell, and again this is happening in a context of systemic congressional impotence produced by legalized corruption and attempted authoritarian clampdown so never forget electoral politics are just the entertainment division of the Military Industrial Complex as Frank Zappa used to say.
I watched the interview with Platner and didn’t believe him.
Then again, I’m not Down East so no vote.
After Fetterman (and Obama), a trust no politicians policy is wise at all times.
I have a lot of reflexive shitlib tendencies and love election stuff so I’m a serial mark for their con, but that doesn’t mean I’m endorsing him or anyone, just trying to document the power struggle going on.
Two politicians so far, each with policy statements. Considering either can’t be trusted, which one do you agree with more?
Fetterman smelled better to PA than the other 3 in the primaries, he beat Oz, flipped a seat, and became a smear verb. And now he’s probably done with, especially considering his mental state, barring a party switch. We can wonder what’s next and what would be better or worse now if any other had won.
Same might happen with Platner, then again, might not. But this non-stop nuking him from orbit on post-adolescent stupidity over some tattoo and some social media anger just might not be the usual all too expected win for someone without amnesia.
Kucinich was turned into a bothersome joke, Dean was burned down over an exuberant yell, Gravel was made a laughing stock at the debates, Sanders managed some real traction and needed to be dealt with. All of them subjectively questionable and untrustworthy – at the time, but would what happened in the years between be better or worse?
key quote “especially considering (Fetterman’s) mental state,” thanks for reminding me I need to document that in a post!
and great point in final sentence.
FWIW policy statements are never anything I pay attention to except as a campaign tool
I enjoyed the disingenuous crap from the former Conor Lamb supporters trolling the left with the “you owe us an apology for supporting Fetterman” jibes directed at the Pennsylvania left. Well no, no we don’t. For several reasons.
Firstly, Lamb’s actions would have been pretty much what Fetterman’s have been. It just wouldn’t have counted as a disappointment because it would have been expected.
Secondly, knowing what was then known the decision made itself. Fetterman had backed Sanders enthusiastically, pushed M4A, and had used his Lt governorship to push for legalized weed. This also predated Israel’s acceleration of its genocide campaign, so outside of the rather small cadre of Palestine activists candidates weren’t being called out on reflexive Zionism. And if they had been, it wouldn’t have differentiated Fetterman from Lamb or Kenyatta.
Also, given the margin of victory (58%+ for Fetterman, 26% for Lamb, 10% for Kenyatta), it’s mighty hard to attribute that result to the “left”, though one could wish otherwise. Clearly he was the only one who resonated statewide, or had any clue as to how to run a statewide campaign. (This would not now be true at all. It’s clear to me that post-stroke Fetterman is mentally challenged in ways far beyond what’s being admitted.) Pretty sure that had Lamb been nominated we’d be looking at Senator Oz.
I’m pretty ambivalent about him. I think DC would eat him alive, and his political beliefs/allegiances seem pretty shallow. I’m also not sure I trust him. But the attacks on him seem unhinged, and his opponent is too old. She could die on the campaign trail.
I suspect what we’re seeing is an unholy alliance of woke ‘leftists’, Dems who genuinely believe he will flame out in a campaign (seems plausible), Dems who hate him because he’s not part of the tribe and Zionists.
On the tattoo thing. This just seems like the kind of dumb thing that young men do, and that libs fixate on because they cannot imagine living a life where you are not planning out your career from age 12. I doubt he’s a Nazi, but he does seem to be like someone who lacks the self-control that successful politicians (particularly on the left) need.
Yes self-control is a huge issue here. I tell my boys all the time that their sports or academic scholarships can be jeopardized by silly behavior captured on a wide variety of cameras all over the place. Your acceptance to college can be retracted.
My boys have lived with honor code so they are aware they represent a set of ethics, principles and standards. Are they perfect? No. If you can’t handle this, go to a different school, find another job or stay out of the public eye.
Tattoos are not a thing in our social group.
Dancing around in your underwear knowing phones are present shows you don’t get technological reality and I am sick and tired of the leaders who are old people and the silly people who don’t educate themselves about how these issues impact all of us. Neither candidate seems to have a clue.
Great rundown Nat. Glad you posted the text of his entire response to all this – I thought it was one of the best I’ve seen when a politician gets caught doing something dumb. Also, I hadn’t realized that it was Platner himself who showed the video with the tattoo – I thought I’d read earlier that it was the Republican Senate committee that released it. Now the whole story seems even stupider. But clearly the hope is to confuse people and cast doubt on Platner, even when it’s him trying to be up front and forthright about things.
I’ve posted a lot about this issue on other threads, but I do think it’s worth noting that Platner has been explicitly anti-Zionist. I’ve seen some videos of his town meetings and a friend recently saw one in person, and one if his big points is that we need to be spending money on building a healthcare system here rather than sending it to Israel so they can blow up hospitals in Gaza. Platner pisses off the Zionists, the ones who have almost our entire Congress by the short hairs, and that is the reason Chuck Schumer couldn’t stand watching Platner win. One of the first things Mills did after announcing her candidacy was reiterate her support for Israel.
A note on the lobstermen – I haven’t worked in the industry personally but have met a few fishermen and certainly heard some stories. So I’d say Platner is correct that there might be a few people in that industry who are not paragons of virtue. That’s because it is largely a very honorable profession and if you get caught screwing with your fellow fishermen, you won’t be in the profession much longer and might be lucky to escape with all limbs intact.
As for the likes of Rafi Schwartz, I don’t know if he beats his wife or not, or is just an ignorant kiss up to the establishment. I suspect it’s the latter, especially given his association with Taylor Lorentz and her shifting allegiances as she tries to curry favor as a “journalist” in an attempt to make more and more money.
thanks! it’s easy to glance at a few headlines with this stuff and get it confused with other stories, or alternatively, to fall into rabbit holes over obsess so I’m trying to hit these big stories once and done and weave them into the overall narrative.
Here’s Ryan Grim and Emily from Breaking Points today on this controversy- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djGvLtKFhdU
If you’d like to see Platner both shirtless and pantless, do give it a look ;) I wonder, does Miley Cyrus have a lot of nazi fans? I thought they went more for the deth metal, than bubble gum pop, but to each their own.
NC readers will note the whopper that Ro Khanna tells in the middle of the clip. After mentioning that the Democrats need to learn their lesson about having national leadership puts its thumb on the scale in primaries, he notes it didn’t work out well in 2016, but then goes on to say that they largely stayed away during the 2020 primaries(!) I suppose if having the ex-president make some calls to get two of the three top candidates to drop out when they had a good chance of winning, all so the #5 candidate could get a boost against the frontrunner, than yeah they stayed out of it.
A lot of Groypers (Which is what the young Republicans are) like Anime and J-Pop. We live in weird times.
Add to this the ongoing US/EU government support for former and/or ongoing neo-nazi gangs in Ukraine, for former ISIS leaders in Syria, for the full throated support for massacres of Gazans for two years, and the imposition of mass political censorship to shore up all of the above domestically. Personally I believe we are all living in the de-facto 4th Reich. An SS tattoo is now small beans compared to the atrocities the suited and groomed DC establishment gets up to everyday.
The hacks are not in Kansas anymore.
This!
glass is what their mirrored bubble is made of, after all/
and, what have they done for me?
(DNC/Versailles Demparty)
So, he wasn’t groomed to
join(err, represent) the Ruling Class, sob, sob…Our problem is that we get (almost) only those who were. Occasionally we get (or try to get) someone with empathy elected, even if elected when they actually try to do something they are primaried by tons of money.
It’s the system (silly me, I must be imagining another system).
Nat Wilson Turner: I am going to contradict you about Nazi swag. And you did bring up the magic word: Fetterman
Watching the Ukrainians lie about Nazi symbolism has made me less likely to think of it as a slipup. I recall when Zelensky dragged the Greco-Ukrainian fascist before the Greek Parliament and caused a scandal in Greece.
So Platner has a problem.
And he has to regain the upper hand.
He is already a U.S. type — the aimless guy who joins the army to “learn discipline.” That isn’t how a man learns self-discipline, U.S. mythology notwithstanding.
How does Platner solve his self-caused problem? His statement about homecoming Is just a start.
excellent points. I can’t believe I didn’t include some tasty “western politicians posing with azof battalion nazis” photos and stories in this post. my bad. would fix but I’m writing two posts for tomorrow, will add to one of those.
re: “learn discipline” if he’d said “to be disciplined” would that work for you better? the military certainly knows how to force disciplined behavior….and then allow some really stark breaks from discipline when possible.
Platner being the one to bring up the tattoo in the first place seems like a good start. He got wind that opponents might use it, spoke about it, and has now had it covered up.
I have been extremely outspoken about the Azovs in Ukraine and their obvious nazi regalia, so I feel a little hypocritical defending Platner here, but this does seem different than the Azov examples. For one, at least from the pictures we’ve seen the tattoo doesn’t even obviously look like a skull, much less a specifically nazi one. Also, this is all there is to tie him to anything ‘far right’ and Platner has said there’s nothing else to find. Famous last words maybe, but so far there don’t seem to be any far right fellow travelers, or anything else in his history of that nature. If a picture comes out tomorrow of him and John McCain posing with all the Azovs and giving them the thumbs up, well than I take it all back.
And I don’t think it can be stressed enough that we have almost our entire political establishment openly supporting a far right fanatic religious government in the middle of committing a genocide. Yet nobody is questioning any of them or suggesting they might have anything other than the best motives in their lily white hearts.
“And I don’t think it can be stressed enough that we have almost our entire political establishment openly supporting a far right fanatic religious government in the middle of committing a genocide. Yet nobody is questioning any of them or suggesting they might have anything other than the best motives in their lily white hearts.”
yeah. point and yell at the young idiot(with PTSD!) this guy used to be for getting a tattoo with his unit when young, stupid, fucked up and with his backslapping warbuddies…to distract from 80 some years of undying support for an unapologetic racist, apartheid, and now genocidal state….whom have obviously become what they beheld.
fuck the demparty.
if they dont like hims, i’d count that as a win.
he should move on, and talk more about the real issues that They cannot touch, or even acknowledge.
and…Oppo goes both ways…and is easier for him, since most of the people following shumer have very long histories of perfidy and hypocrisy.
and 2.0: this is exactly why i never got into politics(except when the local PTB tried me on last year)…theres too much dirt on me available…and likely orgy vids,lol.
exactly. in a sane environment this might be disqualifying but I could give a shit about the guy’s tattoos: he’s anti-genocide and an economic populist. ‘Nuff said. He’s better than his opponents in the race on that basis alone.
Sure, he says the right thing on issues. That’s important. However, is he going to explicitly name dem leaders as THE problem???
There’s examples that you listed in the post of the center getting the upper-hand in intra-party fights.
Post-2020, I have real questions about whether the would-be left we’re supporting is really up for contesting power. I need to see CLEAR opposition to dem leadership, not just, “hey, it would be nice to have better healthcare, but I’m not willing to risk my political career to make it happen”.
We need a left opposition that will make the party lose in order to open the door to getting control of the party. Nothing else matters.
I’m afraid I’m not among those supporting the Democratic left. I will vote for them if presented the option, but IMO the option of voting our way out of this mess was over when Trump was re-elected.
2008 and Obama was the last off ramp and we were betrayed.
I am concerned -especially after closer look at some of his past sh*tposting- that he’s that guy, the guy who like to make giant dramatic statements, but will instantly revert to nuance and context if there’s the slightest bit of pushback.
That guy is pretty easily led around by the nose.
Was he anti genocide when he said he wishes he could go back in time to fight in the Indian wars? https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/f9ece506-243a-4f28-a447-ca80355a1eea.jpeg
I’m primarily concerned with the genocide that is currently happening. Nice fact finding but mid trolling tho.
He covered up the tattoo with a design that shows the Frieren wolf devouring the world, an old Norse myth. Really bad choice IMO, I don’t know what he’s thinking, but judging by the responses on bluesky he’s lost a lot of younger supporters.
Without breaking a sweat, I can think of three young men who joined the military after some troubled and aimless years. It was the making of them. First you are disciplined by parents, schools communities, mentors, the army, the marines, making an ass of yourself and bearing the consequences and from that you acquire self-discipline. Of course, you can continue aimlessly, continue making an ass of yourself, and screw up your entire life. Platner seems to have taken the first course. I am so glad there was no internet to archive my every stupidity so they could be thrown in my face later in life. I shall wax biblical. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I want Platner to be elected to the Senate. I favor his announced positions. A less admirable reason: it would stick in Chucky’s craw.
Have to agree with all that.
There is definately a lot to find out about this subject. I like all the points you made
The guy has a Nazi tattoo. He’s not a “progressive candidate,” he’s fash. It’s not complicated. The only reason he has a chance is because there aren’t enough black voters in the state to hold him accountable.
ah you’ve brought a time machine from 2016 and communicated with us!
I haven’t heard any of this bullshit in a while and certainly not at NC.
Stale, bot level work. I hope you’re AI and not getting paid by the post.
He’s had this thing for years and still had it up until yesterday. This isn’t “skeletons in the closet,” it’s something he was comfortable wearing until a political campaign was underway. The simplest reading is that he didn’t mind it until he realized that it was a political liability. The most creatable reading is that this guy is so dumb that he *accidentally* stanned the Holocaust for decades, up until literally yesterday. Neither of them speak well of his suitability for office.
Much better spin work but you ignore the fundamental point that the support for Ukrainian nazis ended the prohibition on nazi iconography much as the Gaza genocide has ended many taboos around anti-semitism.
FWIW I was a big supporter of both taboos all my life and feel pretty conned given that the powers that be don’t give a single s**t
Excellent riposte, Nat!
its hilarious when these dembots or aipac/hasbara bots show up here.
its obvious theyre just parachuted in.
Does anyone run an anti-hasbara shop? If so, where do I sign up? (And no, I do not mean Nordic Runes.)
Just because the Democrats are fine supporting Nazis does not mean you should be
That’s an ad hominem attack on multiple levels and I don’t appreciate it.
I’m not supporting anyone in this race. I’m sort of rooting for Platner because he’s representing the populist wing of American politics and is anti-Genocide but I’ve been burned by Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, etc etc and won’t be fooled again.
Well, not supporting anyone in a race, should mean sort of rooting for no one. :)
Looking from the outside, the whole USA politics seems to be about making people choose the lesser evil, or think they are choosing the lesser evil. By this point, anyone involved should get “fell for it again” award.
“creatable”
really?
Platner’s lying about the tattoo and disgustingly instrumentalizing the confessional and testifying language of AA/self-help because he knows that kind of talk holds rhetorical weight among the perpetually recovering American people.
His history of jackbooting imperial subjects in the periphery–especially in light of the tattoo–sets off alarm bells. Ex-imperial stormtroopers make for terrible politicians. Think John Kerry and John McCain.
Anyway, DC would eat this guy alive. He’s clearly protean. The establishment will mollify his domestic concerns with a few bones (“access to mental health care for those living within 5 meters of a struggling community in a food desert near a homeless shelter”) while the blob suborns him.
At NC at least, we have quite a few ex-military and ex-intelligence people who are deemed trustworthy because they have come to disagree with the policies of the government they once worked for – Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Larry Wilkerson, Chas Freeman, etc. And then of course there was the famous warning from ex-general and then president Eisenhower about the MIC. Why can’t Platner have changed his thinking too? Sometimes people do wise up.
And yeah, they’ll try to eat him alive if he gets elected. And if there’s just one like him in Congress, they might succeed exactly as you described. However if there were more people like him, that would be much harder to do, which is why we can’t let the establishment continue to pick off promising candidates one by one every time they pose a threat to Congressional rice bowls, leaving AIPAC to chose who gets to serve as our representatives.
Once Fetterman-ed, twice shy.
At the moment Platner appears to be on the right side of most issues, so I’d probably give him my vote in the primary and general if I were a Maine voter, but at this point we can’t be blamed for low expectations.
Bazarov, do I recall correctly that you are (or were) in Yekaterinburg?
John Kerry? Geez, isn’t he Skull and Bones? What about old man Bush and his spawn. Aren’t they ‘Bonesmen’? Bonesmen have secret tattoos. I have it on the good authority of a janitor at Yale who I met in a dive bar in New Haven back in the day. He confided that they get the Skull n’ Bones tattooed on one ass-cheek and the Mitre n’ Sceptre on the other cheek. He said that the other rites that they perform were so degraded and scary that he couldn’t share them with me no matter how many shots-n-beers I plied him with.
A well coifed twit entered the joint and they exchanged eye contact. He began sweating and mumbling. He popped his shot and drained his dimey. Stumbled off his stool and made for the rear entrance he did. Of course it was just the weird vibe, but I reached under my wife-beater and began fingering my crucifix. Decades later I found comfort in many a Maine dive. Mostly east-o-Schoodic where most of the men and all the women are well designed and always prepared to come to your rescue.
vivd and scary story telling!
Are there any credits needed there? I may be slow.
yes, do tell….
The whole system is run on credit.
The totenkopf is an absolute back breaker for a lot of people who want to be on Plantner’s side. It does stretch his credibility for him to play dumb on it but what I can’t suss out is whether he’s had it covered up prior to this, or if it’s still there in orginal form. If he hasn’t had it covered up I cannot help but grimace at the lack of foresight. There was already the eye narrowing with him joining Blackwater in 2018 and this just damn near may shut them completely.
Even then though, I am hoping he doesn’t drop out because I’d like to see this play out. How he manages through this is going to be a true measure of whether he can withstand the non-stop heat he will be under if he continues to maintain his stated positions. He’s a case study about how people can change, but still have to reckon with a past that doesn’t reflect the person they are today
(A good example would be Wab Kinew who overcame a pretty checkered history to become the current Premier of Manitoba)
very good points.
I think the taboos on nazi tattoos were destroyed in 2022 when Ukrainian nazis suddenly became AOK in the MSM. Should have brought that out in the post.
For a Jarhead, I find his claims of ignorance plausible. I’ve seen a lot of scary ink on ex-combat arms guys who are by no means Nazi-adjacent. The variants of the death’s head are scary, and have been popular with lot’s of militaries. The Nazis themselves appropriated it (and much other military regalia) from preexisting military symbols (Death’s head Hussars among others) harking back to the Kingdom of Prussia and the founding of the German Empire. There are cousins, a skull and dagger, the skull of the marine raider patch, etc.
I find it less plausible that he remained ignorant of the implications until recently. What he was ignorant of was that he would be living in a goldfish bowl as soon as his campaign became “a story”.
this is the most rational assessment ive seen, yet.
“unaware of the goldfish bowl he’d be in”
again, its why i dont run for office, aside from maybe appointed locally.
he prolly cant afford a self-oppo guy, after all.
and is a newbie to the hypocritical lying class.
he’s been a grunt soldier, a wastrel, and an oysterman.
and a merc, for a while(bc thats the world we inhabit…slotkin, et alia, are ok?)
mirrors all around, in DC!
id be an awesome pol…but ill never run, at all, bc of this bullshit.
not worth the hassle and the airing of one’s dirty laundry(i have a lot).
better to let it continue to senesce, and grind down upon itself, until it is no more.
and then we’ll deal with the next thing.
Closing with a quote by Zappa is just a way to get me to say thank you and I resent having to do that
Apologies, if it makes you feel better I think he was also capable of being a supercilious ass who used potty humor to make a buck off his sometimes clever, sometimes tedious European art music style avant-garde compositions played by incredibly disciplined jazz/rock bands.
; )
one of my band directors in high school had been in his orchestra(!?), playing bass trombone.
he turned me on to Zappa.
possibly The ABNUCEALS EMUUKHA electric SYMPHONY orchestra & CHORUS?
https://www.donlope.net/fz/lyrics/Lumpy_Gravy.html
A former US Marine who got an SS tattoo in Croatia and after leaving the military worked as a merc for Blackwater in Afghanistan seems like a stretch, were I voting in Maine.
Fetterman does come to mind, especially that wild story of him chasing a black dude with a loaded shotgun while he was mayor of his west Pennsylvania town.
Platner is not taking AIPAC money and he speaks decent Left Wing for beginners. If that’s all the Dems got, why not just vote for Susan Collins? At least she’s got the consistent talent of making a big show of being slightly concerned about right wingnut Supreme Court nominations before eventually voting for their confirmation. She also loves to do interviews on NPR.
great points, well expressed.
however during a genocide and an newly ramped up open plutocracy, “Platner is not taking AIPAC money and he speaks decent Left Wing for beginners” are both positions that require risking a political career, and possibly a life for very good reasons, so my inclination is to support those taking those two steps over those who are not.
Nat, i admire how you have attempted to fill out Lambert’s Waders…
it was needed around here.
to keep us coherent.
(and there is an US)
but dont be limited by what Lambert did.
keep doin what yer doin, and keep expanding…i like the longer posts!
and the deeper dives, with lotsa links, etc
you have your own narrative flow, that is not ….Lambertian,lol….but your own.
follow that.
Will do, thanks much!
I really like these posts, partly because they sound nothing like anything else on the site but not only that. They do unfold in a way that suggests Nat’s experience in learning about them, which has its own personal flow. I’d also say “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
Thanks much!
I’ll be back to the 2 posts a week pace here next week, but I think I’m going to up my output at Ian Welsh’s site and maybe start a Substack and do at least a 7 posts a week pace.
Oh No! I am already spending hours keeping up with your posts on NC and Ian. However, I am prepared to sacrifice dusting, floor mopping and cleaning the oven, (however, the chickens must be fed and the eggs collected) to make time to read a Substack, should you chose to start one.
I especially enjoyed the Maine political dissection, having family who lived in a southern Maine fishing village. And watched, over the decades, the lobstahmen moving inland and their modest cove-front houses and piers become gentrified, and fenced-in, by millionaires from ‘outside.’
Thanks. I’m going to up my pace at Ian’s first and then we’ll see if I go with Substack or a different platform.
He needs to clean up, and shave off that beard and Ustache.
oh my, the zeitgeist turning into a typhoon
I don’t know which I fear more:
1.) the self-selection as political candidates of damaged personalities. the PTSD justifying a 100% veterans disability might be a more fundamental issue than flawed symbolic expression. Or, may be those are two aspects of the same issue
OR
2.) the smoothly professional destruction of a candidate by an orchestrated media campaign set in motion by a dominant political faction that has not and will not propose any candidate with a capacity for governance
well effing put!
#1 is a novel problem, #2 is something old and stale that Platner and his allies might have the potential to prevent so here’s to novelty!
Since when is a skull and crossbones strictly a Nazi symbol? Does everything have to be about Jews and their persecution now? I suppose when Apple ran a skull and crossbones up the flagpole back in their early days they were trying to showcase antisemitic personal computers? Or when we watched Treasure Island on TV sixty plus years ago, the pirate flag was Nazi symbolism? I can’t believe how the media turns every possible thing into a “Dean scream” level fake controversy when the PTB have it in for someone who steps outside the bounds they have set up for public discourse. Not saying Platner won’t turn into a Fetterman type jerk as Senator, but you have to believe the DNC would rather see Collins get back in than have someone like Platner (or any populist, really) taint their brand of mushy pseudo-“centrist” neoliberalism.
this particular design is 100% associated with the notsees.
ironically your comment “Does everything have to be about Jews and their persecution now?” is less true in 2025 than at any point since 1945.
and “you have to believe the DNC would rather see Collins get back in than have someone like Platner (or any populist, really) taint their brand of mushy pseudo-“centrist” neoliberalism.” is 100% true
On your second point, I may be mistaken but my personal recollection is that, while everyone knew the central fact of murder of Jews being one the biggest Nazi goals, it was generally mentioned in a hushed way in both private and in public culture, up until around 1970. I am not sure the term Holocaust was widely used to describe it until around then, and the endless outpouring of fiction and nonfiction books on the subject didn’t begin till the tail end of the 1960s was speeding past. There were many things about World War II we oddly didn’t talk about much, maybe because it was too recent. (For instance, how we went from being best buds with the USSR to deadly enemies seemingly overnight.) By far the biggest issue talked about related to persecutions was the way blacks (then called “colored” or “Negro”) were being treated. Supposedly just down South, but smart people knew better.
I’ll have to defer to your experience of the era as I wasn’t sentient until the early 70s. By the time I was aware the documentary Shoah (or at least Woody Allen obsessing about it) was a big thing, as were the Golda Meir bio-pic on network television, etc.
Regardless, if I amend my statement to from 1975 til now…it’s true, no?
Counterpoint – The Grest Dictator, various Loony Tunes cartoons, various radio shows prior to US involvement and during the war….
And the comics sometimes got into trouble, because political comedy is always a target.
Norman Finkelstein has spoken about and corroborated this. According to him, it was Israel’s victory in the 1967 war that signaled the shift in attitudes and media coverage.
That’s a key insight. Love Norman.
the performative ratfuckery surrounding this guy is 50% DNC nuking from orbit, 40% otherwise regular people for whom a stupid child’s flash tattoo is the most important thing about a candidate for some reason, and 10% genuinely good lefties who just can’t stomach a death’s head. as the zeitgeist breaks hard right, anyone standing against the oligarchial omnistate better hold their nose – the man next to you in the trench might stink, but he’s your brother.
One saying that might be appropriate here is: When you’re explaining, you’re losing.
This might be the best way for Platner to manage this attack. Explain it once and move on. When planted oppo shills shout the question again after he has slid by it the first time, just turn your back on the shill and plow ahead with the policy framework. One can also copy a play from the DNC playbook and have security eject the “troublemaker.”
I wonder how Machiavelli would handle this?
Stay safe. Vote early, vote often.
Dems: “We need to find a way to win back disillusioned young men.”
Mamdani & Platner enter the room.
Dems: “Not those men!!! Guys like Buttigieg.”
Hard to take whining about a candidate’s past from a party leadership pushing for Cuomo over Mamdani and complaining about the left being too woke and fixated on cancel culture.
Don’t know much about Platner but all the right people hate him so that’s a good sign. And, I know plenty of former Marines with rancid pasts who’ve got positive perspectives now that they’re older, wiser, and not in that MIC bubble. Heck, even if he was a “notsee” at some point that perspective could be useful in a political environment where people like Nick Fuentes motivate masses of young men. We need candidates who can speak to them and hopefully bring them to the good side (like Mamdani doing the Andrew Schultz podcast today).
Sure, there’s a risk after what we experienced with Fetterman and Sinema. But better to have a chance at a good politician than no chance. Or, we can just stick to McKinsey approved politicians and see how that works out.
Medhi Hassan just posted the Mamdani interview making this same point.
https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1981131562964910338?s=46
On a related note, I just went to the movies to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show and at one point in the audience back and forth with the show there was some Maine themed adlibbing. In a pause just before Frank-N-Furter says “I believe we can do better” or something like that, someone yelled out “What do you think of Susan Collins?!?”
I can’t believe I barely mentioned her in this whole piece. LOL
Thanks for thoughtful discussion. I live in Platner’s home town, Sullivan, and have known his family for 50 years. He is working really hard, and is using his campaign to try to educate people about the horrors and the true causes of our difficulties. The reason his campaign has taken off is that he isn’t scared to speak the truth about the oligarchy, and he has considerable personal charisma. I understand people’s reactions to his online posts and the tattoo but I’m hoping they can get past that. I’m confident he wouldn’t be another Fetterman or Synema. None of us are clean, let’s work at making things better, not trapping people in their past idiocies.
thanks for posting from Maine.
Winds of change or just another scam in the making?
I’m certain they figure that one increment to the left will suffice…
Go genocide!!!
Look, I’m Jewish and saw him in Portland Maine this summer before 9000 people when we all gave him multiple standing ovations–probably the biggest one was for stopping the genocide in Gaza. All I can say is that I would love to see him run HARD against Israel, as well as those accusing him of being a hidden Nazi (which I seriously suspect he’s not) as simply part of the Democrat establishment that doesn’t want Medicare for All, etc. and is endlessly genuflecting to the Israel Lobby and the bankrupt Center. I’m not crazy about the overly apologetic video he produced. I think he’s right to apologize, but he should counter it with: hey, the ugly anger that I’ve expressed here is part of the world that’s been created for all Americans to grow up into and try to find their place in; I’m not proud of it, but that’s a truth we all have to deal with.
I actually think that anyone who runs HARD against the democratic establishment right now–and very much including the outrages they’re supporting in Gaza–will find a lot of traction amongst Mainers, both Democrats and Republicans. I think an aggressive campaign would shock–and terrify–the establishment altogether. I’d love to see it. And also, Maine is not a particularly Jewish state, far from it. Israel/Palestine is purely and abstract issue there about morality.
Thanks for sharing your experience of his campaign. I only wish this grassroots hatred of the Dem establishment had taken off in 2016 instead of now.
As a former democrat who gave a lot to Bernie when he ran, I get a lot of texts & emails from Dems asking for money. All of them, with one exception, use either fear of Trump & the Rs or identity politics (I’m the only lesbian Native American running in deep red yada yada) as their selling point. Only one so far has mentioned the Gaza genocide & Medicare for all, so I rewarded him with a donation. Even if Platner turns out a dud, I do it as “encouragement for the others.”
I thought the party line was that he was communist?
Note the fun way CNN uses quotes in the text, which is also used over social media. It looks like Plattner probably wrote the words “communist”, “all” and “actually are”. I have independently verifed that CNN has used the words “we”, “produce” and “propaganda”. So in the spirit of CNN:
The whole debate regarding the guy’s tattoo seems a bit dated. If I want to know how racist somebody is I just go look them up on NextDoor ™.
Happy Halloween and the American celebration of the whole variety of skeletal “death’s heads” that exist in this culture. Seem a lot of people have a fascination with human skulls. I particularly like the rhinestone skulls of the Dias de la Muertos celebration and the many, many skulls of Tibetan Buddhist iconography. I admit that there is a certain type of totenkoph that I associate with the German insanity of the ’30’s and 40’s. There are also modern totenkophs that have that notsie feel but are graphically more modern. I see such decals on hot cars at the local muscle gym I use for swimming. And of course the Azov Ukranians use a wide variety of notsie symbols.
I can forgive the Maine lobsterman for neglecting to get his MA in modern iconography before running for office. He should be challenged on things a bit more substantial.
I always thought Nazi paraphernalia was the coolest. Not that I’m a Nazi, but they really understood showmanship. The one picture I’ve seen didn’t show the tattoo very well, but I didn’t think it looked like the totenkopf. As others have pointed out, lots of militaries have used skulls or skulls and bones as symbolism. By the way, I was eight years old when the war ended, so I lived through the biggest anti-Nazi propaganda push ever, and a lot of the highest ranking officers in the U.S. Army (e.g., Gen. George Patton) really wanted to join with them to fight Communist Russia in spite of it.
Wait, does this lengthy article make no mention of Platner’s enthusiasm for his gig patrolling outside Abu Ghraib?
It seems to make no mention of Platner’s stated enthusiasm, as recently as 2021, for fighting “small wars”, or his stated desire that if he could fight any war, he would have liked to have fought some of the “small wars” in the Philippines, Haiti, Vietnam, etc.
Platner is a rich kid whose grandfather did work for the OSS, and whose father was a prominent attorney. The reason Platner did multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t because he was poor and needed the money —the reason he did it is because he enjoyed killing people who had fewer resources than he did. Because he is a thug, and a particular kind of white thug is very popular in this country right now, even amongst the so-called “left” and “progressives.”
Platner was reportedly a machine gunner in the military before he signed up to be a mercenary for Blackwater. In Iraq. And Afghanistan. has everyone forgotten what the United States did to Iraq and the surrounding region? All of that should have been disqualifying for anyone who says or claims to oppose genocide
Stop fretting over everyone’s “woke identity politics”, and the meaning of the tattoo. That’s not the point. The point of the tattoo discussion is to distract from what Platner actually did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which now garners him 100% disability for PTSD, a status which does not suit him for the Senate.
There’s plenty of time to get another candidate who may not be as cute or give you a visceral thrill like Platner does, but you will get over it.
And while the tattoo is the least of it, I will add that my grandfather, my father, and my ex all served in the US military, and not one of those men ended up with a Nazi tattoo. It’s not rocket science to avoid getting a Nazi tattoo, but again, it’s also not rocket science to avoid signing up for Blackwater after you’ve done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sorry I didn’t include every single fact or facet of the campaign and Platner’s biography.
This post is an attempt to convey my impressions of the media coverage and social media discussion of the campaign for people who haven’t followed it at all.
I’m a former election pro and a quick study but not a Mainer or obsessed with the campaign. So I didn’t notice the Blackwater fact point in my skin of the materials — meaning it wasn’t being made a major issue in the campaign in the coverage and conversations I’d seen.
If you’d dropped your comment sooner I’d have added to the post but as is the post is old and I’m too tired ATM.
I was mostly interested in the Bernie wing vs the Schumer wing angle of the story rather than “is this guy a good choice to represent Maine in the senate?”
The mercenary angle in particular is one is definitely being used to attack him in an organized manner “from the left” (or as part of the organized Mills oppo attacks)..but that wasn’t the fight I’m following.
“The left” has no power and an imperfect (or even profoundly flawed) candidate who’s using anti genocide and economic populist rhetoric and getting an overwhelming response in a state that’s been sending Susan Collins to DC for most of my life is a dramatic outlier.
On the other hand it is gross and icky to work for Blackwater etc and serves as a reminder that we should never develop parasocial relationships with electeds and candidates.
But I assume all these people are POS waiting to reveal themselves and I evaluate them like job applicants “is this the best choice of the available (bad) options?”
Personally my “rooting” interest in campaigns is more about “what is the electorate responding to? is there a candidate finding something to offer that is getting a stronger response than other material?”
So yea, this guy could easily turn into Fetterman 2…hell the Senate isn’t even in session and appears like they might not come back so this is all just circus and popcorn. but it is always exciting (to me) to use electoral politics as a way of taking the pulse of the public even if our will is never implemented.
Thanks for the lengthy and informative comment.
I’d be happy to write an article for NC explaining what Platner’s actual record shows. I am deeply concerned about the comments I’ve seen in response to your article, which amount to “rah-rah” for the faux-workingclass (Platner went to Hotchkiss, one of the most elite private schools on the East Coast) former Blackwater mercenary/machine gunner.
Platner’s actual record looks like a walking tour of American war crimes from Afghanistan to Somalia.
That fact that multiple new site visitors are showing up 2 days after this post was made and pitching the same stuff attacking Platner from the left puts off just a touch of eau de troll, or maybe it’s just my cynical ex-campaign op nose lying to me again. Thanks for the sincere contribution to the NC community’s understanding of this campaign. Nothing could be more important than sending exactly the right candidate to the US Senate (currently closed, and abrogating its powers to Trump) in 2025.
Also, not to give professional advice, but one shouldn’t use the phrase “I am deeply concerned” when concern trolling, it gives the game away a bit. Fake sincerity better! is always good advice for the career political actor. Also, what part of Marin County…I mean Maine are you from, exactly?