“The trademark millennial ‘like’ has rarely done this much work in a sentence.” This is an excellent piece with focused, clear writing, and the paragraph this quote came from is crisp and damning. Great work.
Great stuff. Platner is 100% Brooklyn laptop class prep school kid in a Carhartt jacket. Amazing that anyone buys this dog and pony show.
One quibble: Susan Collins is hardly a "caricature of an establishment Republican." She's one of the more independent-minded senators, which is likely why she's been so long-lasting in a Maine that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1988. I think it's true she votes with the Republicans more often than not, but she's hardly MAGA. She voted for Trump's impeachment, and is one of the few senators who breaks the party line. I think the backlash against her is the generalized incumbent backlash, coupled with an overriding push — especially by the activist class giving us candidates like Mamdani and Platner — to get rid of anyone in the dreaded "R" category. Does anyone expect Platner to ever vote against party lines, or present a non-DSA idea, like ever?
I suspect that she's way under-polling, as she has in the past, and will win. But who the hell knows?
The most prescient book about our current situation was Christopher Lasch's "Revolt of the Elites," 1995 wherein he detailed the various ways the classes ceased to intermingle. We pick faux populists because we don't have standing in working class communities.
Saying Platner "leads decisively" in polls is a massive stretch. From what I can tell he has been well within the margin of error for more than a month and is running well behind dems as a whole in Maine. One pollster had him running 8 points BEHIND a generic dem against Collins as of last week. He's at serious risk of losing.
Neither Party depends on their voters or delivering on policy promises to voters. That is not how American politics works.
Both Parties depend on their major donors to finance marketing campaigns that deliver voting majorities to elect candidates, who will acquiesce in raising more money to finance more campaign spending.
No one in this system is interested in governing except the donors and their lobbyist minions.
Is this going to be the new “not an actual fill in the blank” thing? Just like how x candidate isn’t enough of a minority of the right kind of minority. What’s the standard for “working class?” I come from a working class family and I have no problem with where he comes from. As long as he has the right policies and follows through on them. It’s not like he went to some Ivy League college and spent his formative years around that circle box people. At that time , he’s was in the military surrounded by working class people. If there’s a spectrum of working class to elite in Washington, he would be closer to the working class. He seems to understand them and is able to speak to them. All the rest is just establishment democrat and right wing purity testing.
Platner is the one who has made his campaign about identity and aesthetics, not me. He could have just run on policy positions, but his handlers selected him precisely to test a new form of identity politics on the American people.
All I know is I heard about an ex military guy from Maine talking about Medicare for all. Sounds like policy to me and someone who the right can’t claim to be anti American. It’s also his policies are why shit libs are trying to smear him and expose his “fake working man” identity. Keep trying though. It’s just getting him more support
This is a really misleading article in many ways. To start, it unquestioningly relies on conservative opposition research and presents it as a left-wing critique of Platner. Sure, having a father as an attorney resulted in a more privileged upbringing than most who would consider themselves working class. But this article nearly equivocates this level of modest wealth with Donald Trump who is a literal billionaire. As other commenters have pointed out, this is just another identity-oriented pandering attempt at what makes someone “true” working class.
The right way to evaluate a candidate who runs on uplifting the working class is on their policy platform, as the author begrudgingly admits is a good platform. Yet the author is stuck trudging through the muck of identity grasping for something to be critical of. Platner is clearly not in with the “elite” the author is so worried about, and all you need to look at to support this conclusion is that he defeated a primary opponent who was backed by the current Senate and House minority leaders.
Platner is the elite. He was born of the elite. Saying so isn't conservative posing as left-wing criticism, it's the truth. But what do I know, I'm just a lowly working-class person being fought over and shouted over and talked down to
No, it doesn't. He's just a rich kid cos playing in a Carhatt. Says a lot how low Dems feel about Platner if this failson is representative of white working class men. It's insulting
Until we build working-class political structures that can produce genuine working-class candidates, I guess we will have to settle for the faux-working class candidates. If nothing else, the Platner campaign has exposed the deep opposition to the Democratic establishment. That opposition goes beyond class-based issues, and you certainly don't need to be working-class to oppose the rise of the oligarchy.
The collection of people gatekeeping “working class” is doing a lot of work for them in their construction of the world. Most people do this to put a neat definition into categories which are fluid or fought on other grounds. For example, education, or narrow fiscal interest. Graham’s expansive definition was of course correct on any examination, if you have to work you are working class. If your capital returns enough so you don’t have to then you’re not working class.
Because we need 60 Graham Platners in the Senate and 220 in the house ! But, you have to start somewhere. People always say it can’t be done or it will never happen., until it does!
What evidence if any is there that the things you point to as Platner's liabilities are reflected in voter sentiment? I just see broad favorabale/unfavorable numbers.
“The trademark millennial ‘like’ has rarely done this much work in a sentence.” This is an excellent piece with focused, clear writing, and the paragraph this quote came from is crisp and damning. Great work.
Thanks for the kind words!
Great stuff. Platner is 100% Brooklyn laptop class prep school kid in a Carhartt jacket. Amazing that anyone buys this dog and pony show.
One quibble: Susan Collins is hardly a "caricature of an establishment Republican." She's one of the more independent-minded senators, which is likely why she's been so long-lasting in a Maine that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1988. I think it's true she votes with the Republicans more often than not, but she's hardly MAGA. She voted for Trump's impeachment, and is one of the few senators who breaks the party line. I think the backlash against her is the generalized incumbent backlash, coupled with an overriding push — especially by the activist class giving us candidates like Mamdani and Platner — to get rid of anyone in the dreaded "R" category. Does anyone expect Platner to ever vote against party lines, or present a non-DSA idea, like ever?
I suspect that she's way under-polling, as she has in the past, and will win. But who the hell knows?
The most prescient book about our current situation was Christopher Lasch's "Revolt of the Elites," 1995 wherein he detailed the various ways the classes ceased to intermingle. We pick faux populists because we don't have standing in working class communities.
This could have been such an easy win for Dems and now it’s looking likely it will be an easy win for Collins
Saying Platner "leads decisively" in polls is a massive stretch. From what I can tell he has been well within the margin of error for more than a month and is running well behind dems as a whole in Maine. One pollster had him running 8 points BEHIND a generic dem against Collins as of last week. He's at serious risk of losing.
Thanks for pointing this out, Joseph. I’ve changed the language and issued a correction to reflect the discrepancy among different polls.
Neither Party depends on their voters or delivering on policy promises to voters. That is not how American politics works.
Both Parties depend on their major donors to finance marketing campaigns that deliver voting majorities to elect candidates, who will acquiesce in raising more money to finance more campaign spending.
No one in this system is interested in governing except the donors and their lobbyist minions.
Great piece. Spot on. Keep writing
Is this going to be the new “not an actual fill in the blank” thing? Just like how x candidate isn’t enough of a minority of the right kind of minority. What’s the standard for “working class?” I come from a working class family and I have no problem with where he comes from. As long as he has the right policies and follows through on them. It’s not like he went to some Ivy League college and spent his formative years around that circle box people. At that time , he’s was in the military surrounded by working class people. If there’s a spectrum of working class to elite in Washington, he would be closer to the working class. He seems to understand them and is able to speak to them. All the rest is just establishment democrat and right wing purity testing.
Platner is the one who has made his campaign about identity and aesthetics, not me. He could have just run on policy positions, but his handlers selected him precisely to test a new form of identity politics on the American people.
All I know is I heard about an ex military guy from Maine talking about Medicare for all. Sounds like policy to me and someone who the right can’t claim to be anti American. It’s also his policies are why shit libs are trying to smear him and expose his “fake working man” identity. Keep trying though. It’s just getting him more support
The Republican Party is a far better vehicle for incubating and injecting economic populism. Why? Because the base voters are actually working class.
Economic populism without wokeness sounds like a winning recipe for Republicans going forward.
They aren't interested in economic populism, though.
The current administration's economic policies have mostly been "augmented Bushism".
This is a really misleading article in many ways. To start, it unquestioningly relies on conservative opposition research and presents it as a left-wing critique of Platner. Sure, having a father as an attorney resulted in a more privileged upbringing than most who would consider themselves working class. But this article nearly equivocates this level of modest wealth with Donald Trump who is a literal billionaire. As other commenters have pointed out, this is just another identity-oriented pandering attempt at what makes someone “true” working class.
The right way to evaluate a candidate who runs on uplifting the working class is on their policy platform, as the author begrudgingly admits is a good platform. Yet the author is stuck trudging through the muck of identity grasping for something to be critical of. Platner is clearly not in with the “elite” the author is so worried about, and all you need to look at to support this conclusion is that he defeated a primary opponent who was backed by the current Senate and House minority leaders.
Platner is the elite. He was born of the elite. Saying so isn't conservative posing as left-wing criticism, it's the truth. But what do I know, I'm just a lowly working-class person being fought over and shouted over and talked down to
This makes it clear to me you haven’t spent any time around the elite if you think Platner is among them.
No, it doesn't. He's just a rich kid cos playing in a Carhatt. Says a lot how low Dems feel about Platner if this failson is representative of white working class men. It's insulting
Until we build working-class political structures that can produce genuine working-class candidates, I guess we will have to settle for the faux-working class candidates. If nothing else, the Platner campaign has exposed the deep opposition to the Democratic establishment. That opposition goes beyond class-based issues, and you certainly don't need to be working-class to oppose the rise of the oligarchy.
The collection of people gatekeeping “working class” is doing a lot of work for them in their construction of the world. Most people do this to put a neat definition into categories which are fluid or fought on other grounds. For example, education, or narrow fiscal interest. Graham’s expansive definition was of course correct on any examination, if you have to work you are working class. If your capital returns enough so you don’t have to then you’re not working class.
Isnt your argument just another form of identity polotics?
How so?
Because we need 60 Graham Platners in the Senate and 220 in the house ! But, you have to start somewhere. People always say it can’t be done or it will never happen., until it does!
Platner's not wrong about the trans debate being one of the issues that keeps ppl arguing for distraction. I'll support anybody who can admit that.
What evidence if any is there that the things you point to as Platner's liabilities are reflected in voter sentiment? I just see broad favorabale/unfavorable numbers.
It's too early to tell, and I certainly don't rule out that he'll win in November, like I say in the article.