You'd Think the John Fetterman Experience Might Sour Progressives on Graham Platner
But nope!
He’s not your grandma’s progressive Democrat: He’s a muscly, tatted-up dude with rap rock facial hair and a working class vibe. He’s edgy, he’s in your face — you’ve heard the expression “let’s get busy” — well, this is a dog Senate candidate who gets “bizz-ayyy!”…consistently and thoroughly. He’s been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and progressive pundits are absolutely smitten by him despite some details in his biography that one might call “colorful”.
Am I describing Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman or Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner? I’m describing both (and also Poochie The Dog from The Simpsons a bit). Platner is running to be the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, and progressives love him because:
1) He says the word “billionaire” a lot — there are 110 words1 on Platner’s campaign home page and four of them are “billionaire” (which is one more appearance than the word “the”).
2) He fits a wine-track progressive’s image of a working class guy: He’s a veteran, an oyster farmer, and he uses uncouth language of the sort one might overhear while eavesdropping on the help. The fact that he has a history of saying awful shit on Reddit and also has…ahem…a wee bit of Nazi iconography tattooed on his chest almost makes him more authentic. Because the poors do that sort of thing, do they not?
Platner’s…let’s say “journey” has not phased his progressive fans. Political commentator and Bizarro World Megyn Kelly Krystal Ball quickly accepted Platner’s apology for his tattoo2 and pivoted to slamming his primary opponent for being “boring” and “uninspiring”. Podcast host and Terry-Gross-for-the-braindead Emma Vigeland decried “hall monitor liberalism” despite arguably being something of a Five Star General in the hall monitor hierarchy, herself. Bernie Sanders played the “there are more important issues” card, which is always true unless you’re talking about the most important issue in the world (tax credits for Substack writers). Jacobin is still in, as is the former bureau chief of The Intercept. High-profile leftists are sticking with Platner.3
On the one hand, this doesn’t surprise me: Brawny dudes with the politics of a Portlandia character don’t come along every day. On the other hand, I’m surprised because the left just went through this with John Fetterman. Fetterman, of course, is now persona non-grata on the progressive left due to his strong backing of Israel and occasional support for Trump (he was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Pam Bondi). He sits alongside J.K. Rowling and Bari Weiss in the Pantheon of People Hated By the Progressive Left. Is nobody on the progressive left thinking that there might be a chance that if elected, Platner might go the Fetterman route?
Platner’s Reddit posts — some of which are as recent as 2021 — do not reflect uniformly left-wing views. Yes, he called himself a “communist” and an “ANTIFA supersoldier”, but he also mocked gay people and took a casual attitude towards sexual assault. This is in addition to tough guy Laptop Warrior shit (e.g. calling all cops “bastards” and saying that semi automatic rifles are necessary to fight fascism) and general campaign no-nos (e.g. calling his potential constituents “racist and stupid”). Combined with the whole Nazi unpleasantness, these posts might cause one to wonder how deep Platner’s progressive convictions run.
And Fetterman, of course, is far from the only person to start out on the populist left and end up right-of-center.4 That path seems to be especially common among podcast hosts: Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, and the hosts of Red Scare all went left-to-right. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are journalists who made the switch. Tulsi Gabbard went from endorsing Bernie to being part of the Trump administration in just four short years, which makes you wonder if she was a centrist for 20 minutes as she rocketed from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Horseshoe theory is real, and people who are part of the anti-establishment, high-testosterone part of the left seem especially likely to make the switch. So…what’s that about?
I think the answer is that the populist tough-guy schtick is a shallow narrative that appeals to people with shallow political beliefs, so we shouldn’t be surprised when those beliefs change.
The common-man-turned-political-reformer story is a compelling narrative, I’ll grant you. It really sings: A hardscrabble outsider confronts a decadent and corrupt political system. Not blessed with money or status, he has street smarts gleaned from a life of hard work, and he uses that common sense to fix problems that the elites are too cloistered or too corrupt to solve. It’s an outstanding story — it’s Rocky meets Mister Smith Goes to Washington with just a dash of 8 Mile thrown in. Though, like all good narratives, it’s worth asking whether it’s a steaming pile of bullshit.
I think the answer is: “Yes, almost always.” Though I would never argue that wisdom is the sole domain of the privileged or educated — I take William F. Buckley, Jr.’s point that it might be better to be governed by the first 1,000 names in the phone book than by Harvard’s faculty — I’m skeptical of anyone who answers the question “why should you be our Senator?” by saying “because I farm oysters”. The oyster farming is irrelevant — show me that you understand our problems and have a realistic plan to fix them. I don’t care about your dumbass working class tough-guy persona — which isn’t even genuine, Platner’s dad was a lawyer and he went to private school — I care about your ability to do the job. And the job is to improve people’s lives, not to make it possible for my liberal ass to imagine that I’ve made common cause with The Working Man because I voted for a guy who heard a Bruce Springsteen song and thought “I’ll be the guy in that song!”
The progressive left talks a lot about vibes — in fact, it’s central to their theory of politics. Their emphasis on vibes seems to make them prone to endorsing candidates with the right vibes, even if that candidate has the Reddit presence of a drunk 9th grader and…let’s say “more of a link to the SS than is ideal.” Platner has showed a decades-long interest in being an anti-establishment edgelord but only a recent interest in progressive politics. Which isn’t too surprising — a lot of people who like the “high-testosterone progressive badass” persona really only like the “high-testosterone badass” part. As of four years ago, Platner’s politics were a mix of left and right, and now they’re hard left, but who can say where they’ll be in another four years? Nobody. But some people like Platner’s vibes and have decided that’s good enough.
My Pet Peeve With Populism Is That It’s a Hateful Lie
The New York Times is running a series in which “thinkers, upstarts and ideologues” offer ideas for the future of the Democratic Party. The first installment has a hell of a title: “Democrats Are in Crisis. Eat-the-Rich Populism Is the Only Answer.”
The Bougiest Proletariat Revolution Ever
After Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York Democratic mayoral primary last night, the right and left fringe — as they so often do — competed to have the wrongest take. Here’s Poster Child For Metastasized Resentment Of Male Pattern Baldness Stephen Miller:
Not counting all the “get involved/donate” stuff.
For the record: I actually agree that the tattoo and the Reddit statements shouldn’t be automatically disqualifying. They’re definitely not great — they tell me that he has bad judgement. For me, the bigger issue is that Platner’s policy positions are boilerplate lefty horseshit that indicate that he doesn’t understand the world and won’t be able to help anybody.
If Fetterman is, indeed, right of center — he’s hard to pin down! He’s certainly far to the right of where he once was.
Obvious joke, but someone's gotta do it:
"And whenever Platner's not around, everyone else should sit around asking, 'where's Platner?'"
I really don't get why someone having a Nazi tattoo isn't disqualifying. Let's not forget one of his major talking points is that he's against AIPAC. It seems like a pretty easy line to draw that he won't be like Fetterman, because he clearly hates the Jews (sorry, "zionists"), and has a long history of such.
Nazi tattoo + conspiracy theories about being controlled by Jewish money = loved by progressives. This is the party of cancelling you for a microagression! When will they call someone on their side out for antisemitism?!