This Maine oysterman thinks Democrats are doing 'jack' about fascism. So he's running for US Senate

[KPN]

One of Graham Platner’s high school yearbooks shows him babyfaced with a buzzcut, holding a sign proclaiming, in part: “Free Palestine.” The image is accompanied by a superlative his classmates bestowed upon him: “Most Likely To Start A Revolution.”

“We'll see!” Platner wrote on X Thursday, posting a photo of the yearbook page, in a post that’s been viewed 4.5m times. Now bearded, burly and tattooed, with a sweep of dirty blond hair above a sunburnt face, Platner still believes in a free Palestine. He also thinks it’ll take something revolutionary to save the US, so earlier this week, when the oysterman announced his candidacy to be the next US senator from Maine, he pulled no punches.

“I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the army. I’m not afraid to name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy. It’s the billionaires who pay for it, the politicians who sell us out,” he said in a campaign launch video, showing him chopping wood and at the helm of a small fishing boat. “And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins. I’m not fooled by this fake charade of Collins’ deliberations and moderation.”
...
Platner believes the party needs an outsider. He believes that pedigreed, establishment Democratic candidates have failed repeatedly to appeal to working-class Americans, hastening the rise of Maga. “This isn’t a vanity project,” Platner says of his Senate campaign. If anything, he says, the campaign has thrown his life into “a bit of disarray”. He’s doing it because he cares about the community that has cared for him and believes in a type of politics that may have appeal across the political spectrum – one he believes has the ability to stop the rising tide of fascism in the US.

His policy proposals – Medicare for all, the return of “serious federal support for building housing” and a “billionaire minimum tax”, among others – may not sound too dissimilar from the platforms of progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders. But Platner is wary of labels, eschewing words like “liberal” or “leftie”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/24/graham-platner-maine-senate-oysterman
__________________________________________
More at the link above. I like what this guy has to say and how he says it. He kind of speaks my mind.

[leftstreet]

1. Sounds like a Commie

DURec

[KentuckyWoman]

2. His first ad has dropped

Link to tweet

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Oligarchs stand with Trumputin.

Seeing how fast DEI, let alone Democracy, folded, it seems the rest of us are pretty much alone.

[KPN]

7. The rest of us is almost all of us in reality. Just need to get more of the idiots who voted R, 3rd party, or

didn't vote to realize that. This (Planter's) kind of straight talk is what's needed.

[RandomNumbers]

4. His policy proposals will be spun to working folks as

* government intervening in your healthcare, government choosing your doctor
* raising your taxes
* government taking YOUR money to help "those people"

He sounds like he is on the right track, but if he doesn't figure out how to control the lies about his policies, he will not do well.

Also if he comes across as unwilling to settle for incremental improvements - if he is, or is spun as, a "burn it down and rebuild it" type, he will not do well, and will just piss off everybody.

[KPN]

6. I think he has figured out how to deal with the spin. That's exactly why he's appealing. He's sort of

like Bernie -- genuine, simple and direct to the point of being almost blunt, but without the crotchety old guy.

And it's not just him who has to figure out how to deal with the spin. The Right has and will always try to spin anything coming from any of their opponents in in a way that creates fear and division anyway. That's their MO. This guy took that crap on better than anyone I've yet seen already in this announcement alone.

[timms139]

17. Everything has

and is being torn down by Trump and the Republicans and will have to be rebuilt .

[DinahMoeHum]

5. His launch ad, from YouTube

[taxi]

8. It's back to being 3 major political parties again?

Democrats, Republicans, and The Government.
When things are unfavorable it is always either the fault of Democrats or The Government. It is never because of Republicans.
When Democratic victories benefit anyone, Republicans claim credit despite voting against it. Then campaign on it and urge voters to stop the tax and spend Democrats.
If you have someone who cannot come straight out and say, "I am a Democrat", then he really is not.

[KPN]

9. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the party leadership will do everything they can to undermine this guy. He sounds like he

doesn't step in line. That's a problem we have in the Democratic Party; we can't serve the wealthy without pursuing their goals, and we can't get their $ without doing that. So you are probably right, the national party will view him as "not a Democrat". Unfortunately, if they do try and succeed at undermining him, it will likely be to the party's as well as working class Americans' deficit.

[twodogsbarking]

13. Maine is not main stream which is a deterent on a national level. Shame, but it is.

They made fun of Bernie for wearing gloves that you need in Maine eleven months of the year. It ain't NYC or LA.

[leftstreet]

18. The Democratic brand is in trouble

The GOP has succeeded in severely tainting the label

It's gotten so bad, for the past few years ZERO political signs in my area identify the Democratic candidate as a Democrat

What else can the guy do?

[taxi]

19. Perhaps he can say something along the lines of the following -

I am a Democrat. One difference between Democrats and our opponents is that we stand for what we say we stand for. Take the republican candidate running against me. The words out his mouth will have you believing that he is strongly against DEI initiatives. He says he is against hiring on the basis of being a specific gender or race. But his campaign is centered on that very ideal. He is just like every other republican candidate. He has chosen to run for this office because republican ideology requires their candidates to meet gender and race standards. The entire republican party is DEI, yet every last one of them will lie to me and to you and to the rest of the country about this. DEI is not a political issue, it has nothing to do with the operation of our government, yet he stands here and lies about it. He cannot be trusted to represent you, the voters, if he cannot even honestly represent himself.

[Fiendish Thingy]

10. So is he running in the D primary or what? Nt

[KPN]

16. Looks like it. See his sdvertisement.

[cornball 24]

11. I'm not a Mainer, unfortunately. But if I were, he would damn sure have my vote!!

[twodogsbarking]

12. Maybe next summer I will get to Maine. There is a peaceful feeling there.

[Nanjeanne]

14. Damn that was a great ad. He's someone I'll give $ to. My kind of Democrat! Thanks for posting about him.

[FakeNoose]

15. I hope the Democratic Party supports him ... he sounds like a winner

The article in The Guardian hints that many Maine Democrats are hoping their Governor Janet Mills will run against Collins. If that's the case then they will support Gov. Mills over Graham Platner or anybody else. This is all nebulous right now, until Mills decides in the next few months whether she wants to run.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

20. Great

"He believes that pedigreed, establishment Democratic candidates have failed repeatedly..."

WHY is it necessary to trash his fellow Democrats and torch bridges he could have used to actually help people?

MAGAt Republicans have failed repeatedly, and fully enabled a deranged maniac, including and especially Susan Collins.



"...progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders."

[msongs]

21. what's his take on the marines patroling the streets to enforce trumpism nt