Platner: Face Down in the Oyster Pond

Heather Cox Richardson had it right about Graham Platner. What the hell were Democrats doing running this guy for the United States Senate?

We have a President with zero qualifications for the job, who had zero experience. So Democrats decided, Why not? Why can’t we put in a guy with zero experience, zero qualifications, since the Republicans do it?

Here’s why not: As historian Richardson noted, Democrats were long good at developing qualified people to run for office. FDR himself insisted on becoming governor of New York before running for President. Zohran Mamdani served three terms in the New York State legislature before running for mayor. It’s how the Democrats build a farm team from the working class.

But in Maine, Democrats insulted us by nominating a completely inexperienced screw-up just when control of the US Senate is on the line.

Platner hasn’t made a dime as his putative job as an oysterman. It’s a hobby. He lives off payments from his mommy and a government disability check. (How disabled are you if you’re out on an oyster boat? I haven’t investigated, but I’m sure Trump will.)

All we know about this guy are his dumpster-fire of a campaign and his vicious attacks on the popular Democratic governor of Maine.

I’m waiting for someone to tell me what Janet Mills did that was so awful as governor that she does not deserve to represent Maine in the Senate? The Party’s Red Guard says that Democrat Mills is supposedly a toady to billionaires. Which ones? Mills’ filings show no billionaire funders while Platner is backed by George Soros and other big buckeroos. That’s no crime, but why dump on a Democratic Governor?

Like Dubya Bush and Trump, Platner’s just another privileged little prick who went to private boarding school in America (Hotchkiss costs $80,600/year) and was expelled. Then, like all good oysterman, he went to another fancy-ass prep school, then blew off college.

Explain how that qualifies him for the US Senate? You know, when We the People elect a senator or a governor or president, we are hiring that person for a job. Qualifications do matter. Please tell me what this guy’s qualifications are? Would you hire this “handy” man?

The only thing that qualifies this guy as a “socialist” is that he has a gravelly voice, wears a Pendelton, has a great gift of gab and tells everyone that the Democratic Party is just part of the crap establishment. I’m sure Jon Ossoff will send him a thank you note for that.

I have to say, Platner’s political speeches are some of the best I’ve heard in my career, and that should be a warning signal that, like Trump, he’s a master bullshitter.

Platner’s fall is not about a failure to “vet” the candidate. As historian Richardson says, you vet candidates for high office by seeing what they do in lower office. Yes, Trump was an exception…and how did that work out?

Let’s talk Platner’s sickening excuses for abusing women and his sexting addiction. He said it’s all about the PTSD from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe him, and that’s why he should NOT BE in the US Senate. Every indication is that he is still out of balance and still suffering from PTSD.

Platner should’ve been psychologically examined and the report made public. Maybe we should’ve done that before we progressives fell in love with John Fetterman.

And there’s the Nazi tattoo. He says he didn’t know it was a Nazi symbol. In fact, he proudly told his girlfriend it was “my Totenkopf.” But, like his failure to hold a paying job, it all about his PTSD. I haven’t looked closely, but Lieutenant Pete Buttigieg, despite his tour in Afghanistan, seems to sport no Nazi graffiti.

And when Platner’s abuse of women, his Nazi ink, the serial failures in life, were exposed, he immediately blamed AIPAC and Netanyahu. Did Netanyahu call him up and tell him to put a Nazi symbol on his head and then tell him to cover it up?

Change it from a Nazi symbol to a Klansmen’s burning cross and see how quickly he’d be out of the race.

Did AIPAC demand that Platner rape his one-time girlfriend? But hey, the last refuge of the scoundrel is patriotism, but the first refuge is to blame the Jews.

By the way, Mr. Platner, and to my fellow democratic socialists (small D, small S), we’ve proven that DSA can knock off Democrats in safe Democratic districts. So far, I haven’t seen a single race in which DSA defeated a Republican. DSA’s biggest Congressional win was knocking off the Chairman of the Hispanic Caucus. ¡Felicidades!

Going double or nothing on the Senate race in Maine shows a deep misunderstanding of congressional politics. Because someone has a bigger mouth than someone else does not make them a more effective Senator.

In the 1970s, DSA was known as “D-Sock,” but we radicals simply called them, “Socialist Singles,” because it was a bunch of young preppy kids who didn’t know squat about organizing in low income and working class communities.

The truth is, the upper middle class kids playing at Revolution have never seen a revolution. I have seen many around this world, and the leaders I’ve known who’ve made a difference, Lula Inacio da Silva, Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, and Harold Washington spent years building up their experience, their knowledge, and their deep reach into the working class.

All were incredibly well read with notable experience.

What’s this all about? A couple of years ago, I asked Noam Chomsky, just after he was “canceled,” about the strange turn in the politics of the college students he was teaching. “Greg,” he said, “It’s the new narcissism.” The goal of the Social Net generation is to glorify their own faddish views, disrespect the elders who’ve toiled before them, and bask in the glory of meaningless “victories” over our own allies.

When the late, strategically-minded Rev. Jesse Jackson joined with labor union leaders, including my mentor Franck Rosen of the United Electrical Workers, and decided to take on Boss Daley’s political machine in Chicago, they ran an experienced legislator and congressman, Harold Washington. When Washington finally won the mayor’s race, his skills made the city’s transformation irreversible.

I want to make this clear. As a journalist, I’m strictly non-partisan. I don’t know if Janet Mills was a good governor. I do know that Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ is Trump’s useful idiot, the only living person who believed Brett Kavanaugh would uphold Roe v. Wade. That is also why I didn’t express a view about any Maine candidate while the race was on.

As an investigative reporter, I have a professional skepticism about every politician.

But privately, I could see the Democrats, like a Tesla on autopilot, heading smack into a wall. I’m not a betting man. But I am a statistician. So, for the very first time in my life, because of my seriously low cash flow, I placed a few coins on Platner to lose the week he was nominated. I knew I’d collect, but I didn’t think I’d collect so quickly.

Note: my $700 score will go 100% to my Foundation to fight vote suppression.

As Sublime warned DSA, “We’re Only Gonna Die For Our Own Arrogance.”

But hopefully, hubristic narcissism won’t cost America control of the US Senate.

And Mr. Platner, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

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Re-prints permitted.

Greg Palast, who suffers from a severe allergy to bullshit, is the author of several New York Times bestsellers including, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

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