Good Riddance to Graham Platner

It’s over for Graham Platner. Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate is officially dropping out of the race, which will give the party until July 27 to find a replacement.

This is the best move for the party, as Platner’s poll numbers had collapsed following revelations of a serious sexual assault allegation. A different candidate will likely stand a stronger chance of defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

It’s also the best thing for the country. Platner was a deeply flawed candidate with no special qualifications to serve in office and a long history of bizarre behavior: from the Nazi tattoo to the edgy Reddit posts to the alcoholism and mistreatment of past girlfriends. Even if some of this stuff could plausibly be excused—he claimed he didn’t know about the tattoo when he got it—taken together, that’s just too many red flags.

But it’s worth noting that beyond his personal issues, Platner was also running on a far-left platform of dubious electoral viability. It’s true that Democratic primary voters are happy to select socialist and quasi-communist political figures, though that probably reflects anger at the party establishment rather than specific enthusiasm for seizing the means of production. Whether statewide voters in a general election are excited about socialism remains to be seen.

Platner did not identify as a democratic socialist, but his entire campaign was geared around supposed populist outrage at oligarchs and “the Epstein class,” whoever that is. Indeed, when Platner initially came under scrutiny for alleged violence toward women, he announced that this was a concerted effort by the Epstein class to get rid of him. His platform reflected the progressive left’s notion that very wealthy people are responsible for all of the misery in society, and they need to be destroyed.

Ironically, this is a view that mostly attracts support from affluent, highly educated people—not the working-class voters that someone like Platner apparently speaks to. Working-class people should be more than a little offended that a cabal of far-left Democratic consultants—Morris Katz and Rebecca Katz (no relation) seem to deserve most of the blame—decided that their own idiosyncratic crusade against billionaires would serve just fine as a policy agenda to appeal to working-class voters. All they needed was a rough-around-the-edges sort of guy with a deep voice and…a penchant for violence? That’s downright insulting.

So good riddance to Platner, and with any hope, good riddance to the class of political operatives who see socialism as both the solution to the world’s problems and the obvious winningest campaign strategy.

I spoke with Christian Britschgi about the Platner situation and a plausible conspiracy theory involving Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.).

I finished Pluribus, which is one of the best television shows I’ve watched in years. Highly recommend!