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AIPAC and Auchincloss: Why is a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts attacking Graham Platner?
https://prospect.org/2026/05/29/aipac-auchincloss-massachusetts-platner-maine-congress/
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) attends a committee hearing on Capitol Hill, January 22, 2026. Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
The other day, Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a corporate Democrat who represents one of the most liberal districts in Massachusetts, dredged up the issue of Graham Platner’s tattoo, attacking the certain Democratic nominee in a must-win Senate contest two states away. “I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying,” Auchincloss told CNN Monday. “I think that it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham Platner’s brand of the Democratic Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country,” Auchincloss said, adding that he hoped Maine voters would agree with him.
Auchincloss has been attacking Platner for months, but now the significance has changed. Since Platner’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Janet Mills, has folded her campaign in the face of Platner’s overwhelming lead, in effect Auchincloss has endorsed the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins. What in hell is Auchincloss up to? For starters, the issue of whether this was really a “Nazi” tattoo was discredited months ago, and it doesn’t seem to bother Maine voters. As Platner explained, when his unit was on shore leave in Croatia as a young Marine in 2007, he got the skull and crossbones tattoo. He had no idea that it had Nazi connotations or resembled the Nazi Totenkopf. He has since altered it.
It helps to know a little about Auchincloss and the Massachusetts Fourth Congressional District. The seat, which was once held by the late progressive Barney Frank, includes the heavily Jewish but also heavily liberal towns of Brookline and Newton. It also includes working-class Attleboro, Fall River, and Taunton. In 2020, Auchincloss squeaked into the Democratic nomination with just 22 percent of the vote, in a badly splintered primary where several other candidates divided the progressive vote. Auchincloss also benefited from a controversial Boston Globe endorsement. It seemed odd that the liberal Globe editorial page endorsed the most conservative Democrat in the race. Auchincloss’s mother is a close friend of Linda Henry, CEO of the Globe. The editorial page editor insisted at the time that Henry had no influence.
Auchincloss as the incumbent hasn’t faced a serious primary challenge since then. This year, Auchincloss has two progressive challengers, who have both questioned his funding from political action committees associated with AIPAC and his extensive corporate funding. They are Jason Poulos, an AI researcher and critic, and Chris Boyd, a public school teacher. If one dropped out and endorsed the other, the September 1 primary might be close. Auchincloss’s outrageous attack on Platner sure looks like a doubling down on his bid for the AIPAC vote. But Auchincloss’s timing is terrible. Increasingly, AIPAC support is becoming a mark of Cain. AIPAC support for a candidate has backfired in primary after primary.
snip
Jake Auchincloss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Auchincloss#Political_positions
Political positions
In 2022, Auchincloss criticized the far-left and far-right as "carnival barkers for socialism or strong-man rule". He said that the goal is not to "scold the other side" but to "work on what the two sides agree on".
He has held varied political positions over his career, starting as a Republican in local government, then running for Congress as a moderate, and later emphasizing his progressivism in his first term in Congress. He returned to his moderate positions after his first term in 2022.
Auchincloss calls himself a Barack Obama-Charlie Baker (my add - Baker is a Rethug) Democrat and is a critic of the Democratic Party's progressive wing. He is a fan of Jonathan Haidt's moral psychology and believes Democrats lost ground by not being seen as upholding "social order", which he defines as care, fairness, authority, and loyalty.
He argues that the "cost disease" is a key factor eroding this sense of order and has also targeted social-media companies for delivering "digital dopamine" to children citing Haidt as an influence. He said that open-air encampments should be cleared and criticized Democrats for not being "muscular" enough in addressing homelessness and crime.
He has argued that the current Democratic Party is too preoccupied with policing ideology, "There used to be this old joke: 'Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line, It is exactly the opposite. Democrats are much more ideologically straitjacketed these days. We cancel each other." He said that he misses when "it was cool to be a Democrat." Reflecting on the party's pre-COVID image, he recalled Bill Clinton's 1992 saxophone performance on The Arsenio Hall Show, calling it "the coolest freaking thing".
Drug pricing
Auchincloss attracted attention in 2021 for his objections to H.R. 3 (Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act), House Democrats' prescription drug pricing reform. Alongside Representative Scott Peters, he co-authored a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi warning that international reference pricing "would discourage research and development" and undermine the "innovation ecosystem".
Auchincloss later specifically objected to H.R. 3's clause capping prescription prices subject to federal negotiation at 120% of the average price in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom and argued that "price controls … because of the uncertainty they create, are a massive deterrent to risk capital that invests in the next generation of drugs" warning of lost jobs in Massachusetts' biotechnology sector.
Health policy experts characterized these arguments as indistinguishable from pharmaceutical industry rhetoric; Boston University professor Rena Conti remarked that "there is very limited daylight, if any, between what his position was in May and Pharma's positions," while Harvard Medical School's Aaron Kesselheim described the claims as a "scare tactic".
Auchincloss' position drew additional scrutiny because his 2020 campaign had benefited from a super PAC Experienced Leadership Matters which raised a total of $575,000; funded partly by pharmaceutical insiders, including $105,000 from his mother, Dr. Glimcher, the president of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a GlaxoSmithKline board member, and because he had personally raised nearly $95,000 from top executives and investors in the industry.
Progressive groups criticized him for "blocking efforts to lower your drug prices" and mounted local pressure campaigns and ads, after which he became a co-sponsor of H.R. 3. Auchincloss' office rejected claims of undue influence, stating that "donations do not impact his views" and that he "doesn't make his decisions based on positive or negative IEs".
Economics, free trade and populism
In response to polling by the progressive group Demand Progress showing that pro-growth "abundance agenda" messaging performed significantly worse with voters than anti-corporate economic populist themes, Auchincloss dismissed the findings saying, "It’s what happens when you test an economic textbook for the Democratic Party against a romance novel, it's such a bad poll."
Auchincloss has argued that "the Republicans engage in identity politics that is intertwined with Christian nationalism. The Democrats engage in identity politics that is intertwined in evaluating individuals based on group identity, rather than as individuals. I think the path for Democrats is to reject both".
He added, "I'm worried that the version that Democrats are going to align on is Diet Coke when MAGA is Coca-Cola: dial down the wokeism and then amplify the economic populism." and has instead called for supply-side economics that avoids protectionism, embraces free trade as a tool to contain China, and more closely resembles the now-"unfashionable" approaches associated with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
He has criticized the "boldface-name Democrats have been leaning into populism". He has promoted an "abundance agenda" and has likened left-wing populism to "offering a Diet Coke to voters who ordered a Coca-Cola" and asked Democrats to reject it. He said Democrats "win by offering an agenda of our own, not a diluted version of MAGA."
Race
In August 2023, Auchincloss was one of nine House Democrats who voted in favor of a Republican-led amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibiting the teaching of "race-based theories" in schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity, introduced by Republican Representative Chip Roy.
While most Democrats opposed the amendment as part of a broader Republican effort to target so-called "Critical Race Theory", Auchincloss described it as a "tough vote". In a statement, he said he was "reluctant to lend credence to the GOP's parade of preposterous claims about the military, an institution I served and deeply respect for historically being on the vanguard of diversity and inclusion efforts."
However, he also argued that the amendment was "tightly constructed to affirm that the military shouldn't teach service members' children that any race is inherently superior to any other or that an individual's worth is determined by their race", calling it "an appropriate affirmation for military schools at a time when both the military and schools are under increasing political pressure from bad actors on the right."
snip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Auchincloss#Political_positions
Political positions
In 2022, Auchincloss criticized the far-left and far-right as "carnival barkers for socialism or strong-man rule". He said that the goal is not to "scold the other side" but to "work on what the two sides agree on".
He has held varied political positions over his career, starting as a Republican in local government, then running for Congress as a moderate, and later emphasizing his progressivism in his first term in Congress. He returned to his moderate positions after his first term in 2022.
Auchincloss calls himself a Barack Obama-Charlie Baker (my add - Baker is a Rethug) Democrat and is a critic of the Democratic Party's progressive wing. He is a fan of Jonathan Haidt's moral psychology and believes Democrats lost ground by not being seen as upholding "social order", which he defines as care, fairness, authority, and loyalty.
He argues that the "cost disease" is a key factor eroding this sense of order and has also targeted social-media companies for delivering "digital dopamine" to children citing Haidt as an influence. He said that open-air encampments should be cleared and criticized Democrats for not being "muscular" enough in addressing homelessness and crime.
He has argued that the current Democratic Party is too preoccupied with policing ideology, "There used to be this old joke: 'Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line, It is exactly the opposite. Democrats are much more ideologically straitjacketed these days. We cancel each other." He said that he misses when "it was cool to be a Democrat." Reflecting on the party's pre-COVID image, he recalled Bill Clinton's 1992 saxophone performance on The Arsenio Hall Show, calling it "the coolest freaking thing".
Drug pricing
Auchincloss attracted attention in 2021 for his objections to H.R. 3 (Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act), House Democrats' prescription drug pricing reform. Alongside Representative Scott Peters, he co-authored a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi warning that international reference pricing "would discourage research and development" and undermine the "innovation ecosystem".
Auchincloss later specifically objected to H.R. 3's clause capping prescription prices subject to federal negotiation at 120% of the average price in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom and argued that "price controls … because of the uncertainty they create, are a massive deterrent to risk capital that invests in the next generation of drugs" warning of lost jobs in Massachusetts' biotechnology sector.
Health policy experts characterized these arguments as indistinguishable from pharmaceutical industry rhetoric; Boston University professor Rena Conti remarked that "there is very limited daylight, if any, between what his position was in May and Pharma's positions," while Harvard Medical School's Aaron Kesselheim described the claims as a "scare tactic".
Auchincloss' position drew additional scrutiny because his 2020 campaign had benefited from a super PAC Experienced Leadership Matters which raised a total of $575,000; funded partly by pharmaceutical insiders, including $105,000 from his mother, Dr. Glimcher, the president of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a GlaxoSmithKline board member, and because he had personally raised nearly $95,000 from top executives and investors in the industry.
Progressive groups criticized him for "blocking efforts to lower your drug prices" and mounted local pressure campaigns and ads, after which he became a co-sponsor of H.R. 3. Auchincloss' office rejected claims of undue influence, stating that "donations do not impact his views" and that he "doesn't make his decisions based on positive or negative IEs".
Economics, free trade and populism
In response to polling by the progressive group Demand Progress showing that pro-growth "abundance agenda" messaging performed significantly worse with voters than anti-corporate economic populist themes, Auchincloss dismissed the findings saying, "It’s what happens when you test an economic textbook for the Democratic Party against a romance novel, it's such a bad poll."
Auchincloss has argued that "the Republicans engage in identity politics that is intertwined with Christian nationalism. The Democrats engage in identity politics that is intertwined in evaluating individuals based on group identity, rather than as individuals. I think the path for Democrats is to reject both".
He added, "I'm worried that the version that Democrats are going to align on is Diet Coke when MAGA is Coca-Cola: dial down the wokeism and then amplify the economic populism." and has instead called for supply-side economics that avoids protectionism, embraces free trade as a tool to contain China, and more closely resembles the now-"unfashionable" approaches associated with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
He has criticized the "boldface-name Democrats have been leaning into populism". He has promoted an "abundance agenda" and has likened left-wing populism to "offering a Diet Coke to voters who ordered a Coca-Cola" and asked Democrats to reject it. He said Democrats "win by offering an agenda of our own, not a diluted version of MAGA."
Race
In August 2023, Auchincloss was one of nine House Democrats who voted in favor of a Republican-led amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibiting the teaching of "race-based theories" in schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity, introduced by Republican Representative Chip Roy.
While most Democrats opposed the amendment as part of a broader Republican effort to target so-called "Critical Race Theory", Auchincloss described it as a "tough vote". In a statement, he said he was "reluctant to lend credence to the GOP's parade of preposterous claims about the military, an institution I served and deeply respect for historically being on the vanguard of diversity and inclusion efforts."
However, he also argued that the amendment was "tightly constructed to affirm that the military shouldn't teach service members' children that any race is inherently superior to any other or that an individual's worth is determined by their race", calling it "an appropriate affirmation for military schools at a time when both the military and schools are under increasing political pressure from bad actors on the right."
snip
Wikipedia:Text of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_4.0_International_License
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_4.0_International_License
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