{"id":577,"date":"2026-07-11T09:07:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T09:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=577"},"modified":"2026-07-11T09:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T09:07:57","slug":"the-graham-platner-fiasco-proves-messiah-politics-is-no-alternative-to-a-failed-establishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=577","title":{"rendered":"The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The least surprising news about Graham Platner is that his senatorial candidacy in Maine crashed and burned. The genuinely startling news about him is that he got as far as he did. He won the Democratic primary by a landslide (receiving 72.1 percent of the vote in an election with a robust turnout). Some of Platner\u2019s more besotted admirers, like his political consultant Morris Katz, were even touting the idea that if the candidate won the Senate race, he had a shot at becoming the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.<\/p>\n

Read more Equality: Why We Can\u2019t Wait<\/a><\/p>\n

This is even though, during his rapid ascent and equally quick plummet from political stardom, Platner waved more red flags than the track marshals in a hundred auto races. Among the major scandals he endured were: the Nazi tattoo on his chest; six years of employment as a private defense contractor (in other words, as a mercenary) for the firm then known as Blackwater; a history of lurid, misogynist, and generally inflammatory Reddit posts; a recent pattern of sexting other women while married; and allegations of abusive behavior towards women.<\/p>\n

Democratic voters largely forgave Platner for all of this. Many accepted his narrative that his behavior was due in part to severe PTSD from his military service as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan. He presented himself as a flawed person who was changing and struggling to get his life on track. And after he stormed to victory in his primary, it seemed as though he might have successfully overcome all of his baggage.<\/p>\n

That was until Monday, when a former partner, Jenny Racicot, alleged to Politico<\/em> and CNN that Platner had raped her during their relationship. Racicot\u2019s horrifying and credible story made clear that Platner\u2019s flaws went well beyond the realm of forgiveness. Another sign of that came in Platner\u2019s video announcing the end of his political run. He seemed not at all contrite over the damage he had done but rather aggrieved and self-pitying.<\/p>\n

Now it is left to Democrats to pick up the pieces, and to the rest of us to see what can be learned from this debacle. Here\u2019s one important lesson: The Platner story is about more than the downfall of one deeply damaged and flawed man. Rather, its true significance is that someone with as many glaring blemishes as Platner was able to win over so many primary voters who had lost faith in the Democratic Party establishment.<\/p>\n

The emerging storyline is that Platner wasn\u2019t properly vetted by the political consultants who managed his cause. This is only partly true. The rape allegation is new (although it had already been floating around as a rumor for weeks), but many of the other discreditable facts about Platner were well-known. But Maine voters were not only willing to brush those facts aside\u2014they overwhelmingly backed Platner, who had come virtually from nowhere, in a primary race against their state\u2019s sitting, two-term Democratic governor. Why?<\/p>\n

David Axelrod, former adviser to Barack Obama, raised the salient point:<\/p>\n

\n

Lost in the recriminations about Platner is the most essential question that applies well behind Maine: How did a deeply flawed but gifted candidate build such a devoted following? It was a vote of no-confidence in policies and a politics that many Mainers feel are failing them. So Dems, you may not have liked his [solutions] but you\u2019d better have some real, meaningful answers to these concerns.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Axelrod is right in suggesting that Platner would never have shot up like a rocket if there weren\u2019t widespread dissatisfaction with status quo politics. But Platner and his team also took advantage of that desperation for change in ways that need examination.<\/p>\n

This is a drama with two significant acts. The first part of the tale is the failure of the Democratic Party establishment over the last generation to fend off the far right\u2014culminating in the 2024 reelection of Donald Trump\u2014which has left a cohort of disillusioned voters hungry for an alternative. The second act involves the rise of political adventurers who have seized the moment to pump up a false messiah.<\/p>\n

These two plot points shouldn\u2019t be seen as separate. A sclerotic party establishment deeply allergic to voter participation and the rise of havoc-prone anti-system demagogues who thrive on personality cults are not opposing tendencies but two sides of the same crisis of democracy (and the crisis of the Democratic Party).<\/p>\n

The manifold sins of the Democratic Party have been much rehearsed and go back at least to Barack Obama\u2019s underwhelming response to the global economic meltdown brought about by the GOP. In a recent post in his newsletter Off Message<\/em>, the journalist Brian Beutler provides a bracing survey of all the reasons Democratic voters have soured on their leaders in the last two decades. The insufficient response to the Great Recession was part of a larger embrace of cautious, no-boat-rocking politics that failed to take into account the increasing radicalization of the Republicans, who in the same period have become ever more antidemocratic.<\/p>\n

After Trump went unpunished for his role in inciting a riot in 2021 and then reclaimed the White House, the die was cast. The voters who oppose Trump\u2014a majority of the electorate over the last decade\u2014no longer trust party leaders to act as an effective opposition.<\/p>\n

Read more What One Week of Trump News Says About Our New Normal<\/a><\/p>\n

In Maine, party leaders displayed their typical fecklessness. To oppose Susan Collins, the Republican senator notorious for caving to Trump while expressing faux concern, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried to clear the field on behalf of the state\u2019s governor, Janet Mills, an uninspiring centrist who is 79 years old. To accuse Mills of running a zombie campaign would be generous. Zombies are at least half-alive and, although brainless themselves, capable of eating brains. The Mills campaign enjoyed only a theoretical existence.<\/p>\n

Knowing the weakness of the party establishment, a group of political consultants decided the hollowed-out state party was ripe for a takeover. Unfortunately, their solution was to manufacture a savior. As The New York Times<\/em> reports:<\/p>\n

\n

Last July, in a small town in coastal Maine, a couple of progressive, self-styled recruiters of economic populists showed up at the blue-shingled house of Graham Platner, a little-known oyster farmer and Marine veteran who lived largely off government benefits.<\/p>\n

They knew his name from local labor organizers and activists, and they had watched a video on the internet of him talking about oysters. Struck by his left-leaning ideology, his working-class affect and his gravelly voice, they became convinced that he could win a Senate seat in Maine\u2014and quickly persuaded Mr. Platner of the same.<\/p>\n

The initial headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative they called up to Maine\u2014Morris Katz\u2014told Mr. Platner he was \u201cthe one,\u201d a \u201chero of the movement,\u201d \u201ca historical figure\u201d who could be \u201cleading a revolution,\u201d according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their conversations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the over-the-top flattery makes clear, the campaign was based on selling Platner as a messiah\u2014both to voters and to Platner himself. It turned into a disaster not just because Platner turned out to be a false messiah, but also because messianic politics is a dead end.<\/p>\n

In a democracy, it is fatal to turn any candidate into \u201cthe one.\u201d Effective political change involves building movements that are far larger than any one person, so if a candidate fails, the work of organizing can continue.<\/p>\n

Morris Katz, at the very least, should have known better. He\u2019s been involved with a very different type of left-wing politics as a consultant to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. While Mamdani is undeniably charismatic, his rise has been fueled not just by his personal charm but also by the organizing strength of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has had a string of victories in municipal elections and congressional primaries. The DSA model has parallels in the organizing of groups such as the Working Families Party and Run for Something. This is a political left that is not looking for \u201cthe one\u201d but rather to cultivate a broad range of candidates springing up from continuous mobilization.<\/p>\n

In the wake of Platner\u2019s implosion, establishment figures, notably Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress, are trying to exploit the scandal to tarnish other progressive politicians with sleazy guilt-by-association rhetoric. (This line of attack is particularly odious because of Tanden\u2019s long history of supporting dubious figures such as Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, and Larry Summers.) This is a despicable tactic and likely to be ineffectual. After two decades of disappointment, it will take more than one scandal to rehabilitate the establishment.<\/p>\n

But the model followed by Katz, of parachuting into a local election to elevate a telegenic figure into being a movement leader, is also discredited. The only path forward is the DSA model: the hard labor of organizing a mass movement from the ground up.<\/p>\n

Read more Gen Z Thinks About Climate Change Constantly. Why Don\u2019t They Vote Like It?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=577\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=577\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-11T09:07:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-11T09:07:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577\"},\"wordCount\":1540,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/731d824ad9272175e1adbc1d5873dc14.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=577\",\"name\":\"The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment - 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