Cross posted at Nat Wilson Turner
“…the timing of the politically fatal accusation against Graham Platner stinks. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the successful campaign to force Platner to give up his Senate bid was not about his character but his politics.” Yves Smith
After Graham Platner was forced from the Maine US Senate race — not because of the allegations printed in Politico, but rather because the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and Maine Democratic Party announced they were withdrawing their financial and technical support from the campaign — centrists have launched a campaign to purge the party of Platner’s voters, donors and key consultants.
Before we start…
I’ve already covered the machinery that forced Platner out of the race so this post will look at forces that are contending to capitalize on his campaign’s failure to punish political enemies or just boost their own clout.
I also covered the role of parasocial relationships, aka “stan culture,” in this situation in the previous piece. In short, I’m against cults of personality whether they’re built around putative progressives, fake-ass centrists, or reactionary fascists.
With that out of the way, let’s get into the current round of the Democratic Establishment vs. Progressive Populists. Go team!
If He’s So Innocent Why Is He Dropping Out?
From Platner’s video statement announcing the end of his campaign:
The brutal political reality is that they are going to take everything away from us. Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign.
We are going to lose our ability to fundraise. We are going to lose our ability to access voter data. We are going to lose all of the things that any campaign needs on the basic level simply to function.
Larger organizations. The national level party. The bigger donor networks. They have all committed to spending no money in this race if I’m in it.
They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.
In short, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), headed up by New York’s dynamic duo of genocide enthusiast Chuck Schumer and the astoundingly corrupt Kirsten Gillibrand (who also played a leading role in the defenestration of Al Franken), announced it “will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.”
Given that both Schumer and Gillibrand were Cuomo dead-enders in last year’s New York City Mayoral election — despite Cuomo having resigned from the Governor’s office after facing “credible accusations” from over a dozen women that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice confirmed — neither of them is a credible advocate against sexual violence and exploitation.
And as Ian Welsh pointed out a very long month ago in his prescient piece “Establishment Attacks On Platner Are Classic Woke Attacks On The Populist Left”, it was pretty gross that Cuomo was forced out of office for being a sex pest but no one seemed to care about the 12,000+ of New Yorkers who died directly as a result of his corrupt COVID policy decisions.
But let’s get to the fight for power.
Reminder: The GOP Incumbent Is A Disney Villain
This woman has done and will harm more women from Maine to Palestine than Platner could do in 100 years
From the archived piece:
Collins is not showing up to the fight empty-pocketed. According to federal campaign filings for the 2025-2026 election cycle, updated through June 7, at least 111 billionaires and their spouses from across the country gave just shy of $10 million to help her keep the seat.
These donations include direct campaign contributions–which are capped at $7,000 per cycle–as well as contributions to other PACs supporting her bid. Among these, Pine Tree Results, the main pro-Collins super PAC, has raised over $16 million and has already spent nearly $4 million opposing Platner.
But the Democratic establishment has other priorities than winning a Senate majority. There’s a populist uprising to nip in the bud!
Open Secrets points out what a deep deep hole the loss of Platner puts any Democrat challenging Collins in:
Platner’s withdrawal … exposed a deeper problem – a financial crater left behind in a pivotal race Democrats view as central to their hopes of regaining control of the chamber.
Before his populist campaign unraveled, the 41-year-old combat veteran and oysterman raised $16.3 million through May 20 and held nearly $2.2 million in cash on hand, according to filings his campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission before the June 9 primary. While that cash total falls well short of the $10 million banked by Republican incumbent Susan Collins – who in 2020 kept her seat even though Democratic challenger Sarah Gideon outraised her by more than $45 million – it nevertheless dwarfs every potential Platner successor.
Send the Hordes Home In Their Hundred Thousands, 600 Insiders Will Choose
So here’s how the Maine Democratic Party intends to decide who the party’s official nominee for US Senate will be — this after overruling the wishes of a record 156,000 who voted for Platner in the June 9 primary — per the WaPo:
Since Platner suspended his campaign, a half-dozen Maine Democrats have announced they would run to replace him. On Thursday, the Maine Democratic Party said those candidates would need to submit a declaration of intent to run at a nominating convention, including a 300-word statement outlining their campaign vision and at least 500 signatures from registered Democratic voters in Maine.
Hours after Platner’s withdrawal, the Maine party announced it would hold a nominating convention July 25 with 601 voting delegates — 101 who are members of the Democratic State Committee and 500 who will be appointed at nominating meetings in each of the state’s 16 counties. The voting will be conducted in rounds, with the five highest vote-getters advancing to the second round and the candidate with the fewest votes eliminated in subsequent rounds until one remains. Only registered Democrats will be allowed to participate, the party said, citing Maine law.
“We are proud that this is one of the most open and inclusive processes that any state party has ever undertaken to replace a Senate nominee,” said Charlie Dingman, chair of the Maine Democratic Party.
Yea right.
There are many ways to organize far more representative caucuses which could engage far more than 0.002% of the 216,000 Mainers who voted in the June 9 primary — over 156,000 for Platner.
Call me crazy, but I really think an actually-democratic Democratic Party would have some kind of mechanism to remove a nominee through a vote of the electorate, but trial by social media followed by judgment by arbitrary elites is the system we’ve got instead, I guess.
Do the Mainers Even Buy This?
Morning Joe claims that Maine voters are not happy:
Joe Scarborough: I will say this, and this is just a word of warning to Democrats in Washington, D.C. Graham Platner was losing support with independents, no doubt about it. But I will tell you, me and [Mika?] have heard nothing — let me underline that, nothing but support from Maine Democrats on the ground for Platner.
Platner campaign signs are still up. They think that this is Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the Washington establishment coming to get him.
They all have the same story. They started hearing 10 days ago that people were coming up to Maine and they were desperate to try to get Platner off the ballot because they thought Susan Collins had too much on him and would destroy him.
I will tell you, without revealing any names, that we have been bombarded by phone calls and text messages from people who want Graham Platner off the ballot, who are high up in Maine politics. And we’ve been getting that for the last two weeks.
So why do I say this? Because there’s a conspiracy? No, not at all.
Go back to what I said at the beginning — a warning to Washington Democrats. You do need to listen to Graham Platner, because whether it’s true or not just as Caddy said about her son who has been working on this campaign, rank-and-file Democrats who have been supporting Platner from the very beginning think that this was cooked up in Washington, D.C. with a lot of money behind it to find anything that could be found to get Graham Platner off the ballot.
And I will say, we know nothing about that. We just — [Mika] and I have been scratching our heads for the last couple of weeks going, why are we getting all these calls about Graham Platner needing to be off the ballot?
It’s almost like the last thing the Democratic establishment wants to do is engage an unruly, unusual coalition of real people.
At least that’s my inference based on this representative tirade from Dem “strategist” Karen Finney on CNN’s The Source:
Karen Finney: I think the the Democratic primary voters owe the rest of the Mainers an apology. Democrat primary voters knew Graham Platner was awful the whole time. They knew that he said society should be disrupted if you didn’t agree with him. They knew that women had credibly accused him of physical abuse. They knew that, in fact, Graham Platner said that he had a very flexible moral compass. The badness is why Democrat primary voters picked him, and they’re the ones that foisted this problem on us. Don’t just blame Graham Platner. Blame, blame Maine Democrats.
It’s hard to imagine why her MSNBC show Disrupt With Karen Finney was cancelled after less than a year.
With the Dem establishment having dismissed the vast majority of Maine voters, the right-wing decided to go full witch hunt.
The right-wing Leadership Institute’s website Campus Reform immediately tried to relive the good old days of the Fall 2023 witch hunt on pro-Palestinian activists.
Progressives should remember that they’re always in the gunsights of the right and that the centrist Democrats do NOT have their back.
Regardless, this attack is weaker than pressing criminal charges on people who mocked the martyred Charlie Kirk.
Let’s look at another story that isn’t as scary as it seemed from a glance at the headlines.
(I’m alluding to Shakespeare, not claiming anyone is advocating actual violence)
As annoying as that kind of contempt for the will of the voters is and as scary as GOP witch hunts are, the forces of reaction weren’t done yet, or maybe this one was just Left factionalism, the ol’ circular firing squad.
Turns out some members of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) — the organization behind much of Zohran Mamdani and company’s success in New York City — have signed a letter calling for Platner and Mamdani consultant to no longer be hired by DSA affiliated candidates.
Here’s from The Intercept:
“We, the undersigned, call on DSA candidates and elected officials to no longer contract or work with Morris Katz or Fight Agency, his political consulting firm,” the letter reads.
Katz is not a member of DSA.
The letter also noted consultants at the agency like Rebecca Katz, who is not related to Morris, were also behind the campaign of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and said they continued to advise him even after he made a hard-right turn after entering the Senate.
Two sources with knowledge of the letter confirmed its authenticity.
“Morris Katz is one of the chief parties responsible for the catastrophic campaign of scandal-ridden Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner,” the letter says. “Billed as a top adviser to the campaign, Katz helped recruit Platner and supercharged his candidacy with slick video production, friendly media placements, and political connections.”
The only reason people are attacking Morris Katz is that he’s incredibly effective.
An as Ryan Grim pointed out, this is a trumped-up nothing burger: “This is not a DSA letter. There may be some DSA members writing one, but there are 120,000 DSA members doing lots of different things.”
But let’s follow that pivot at the end of the letter to Michigan.
Former George W. Bush speechwriter, David “Axis of Evil” Frum chimed in with a strong pro-genocide statement:
Naturally, as a “Never Trumper”, the Dem establishment loves Frum — despite, or maybe because they have literally zero electoral appeal — and he feels free to pontificate as if he had the moral high ground.
Establishment apparatchick Neera Tanden agrees:
I’ll let David Sirota have the last word on this exchange:
156,000 Mainers Can’t Be Wrong, and Now They’re Pissed Off
Nathan Barnard has a story with a bit more substance for DropSite News:
The 15,000 member volunteer network behind Graham Platner is now using its considerable leverage to push whoever replaces him as the Democratic Senate nominee to be aligned with the same policy platform that drove the largest primary turnout in Maine state history.
Drop Site has obtained a draft letter addressed “to the Maine Democratic Party and prospective candidates” notifying them of their policy demands.
“The volunteer infrastructure that this movement built – the organizers, door-knockers, the small-dollar donors, the hosts, the people who make phone calls and staff tables between now and November – does not transfer automatically to whoever the Party selects,” the letter states. “That infrastructure exists because people believe in a specific platform. It will only continue to exist and only continue to be deployed for a nominee who publicly and explicitly adopts these core commitments as their own.”
…
The tension between organizers and Maine Democratic party officials has grown as they determine a process to replace Platner. A former Platner staffer told Drop Site “all field and data” staff were moved onto MDP payroll before the rape allegations broke for “accounting purposes,” creating an awkward situation for the Platner organizers—who, like the volunteers, are unhappy with the MDP’s manuevers.
On July 8, Platner campaign organizing director Spencer Toth resigned from the MDP over its lack of engagement with volunteers and organizers in determining the replacement process. Drop Site obtained his resignation letter.
“Together, organizers and volunteers built something much bigger than one candidate. They built the largest grassroots operation in Maine’s history, a people powered movement rooted in working class politics and the belief that ordinary Mainers deserve a real voice in the future of the Democratic party,” Toth’s resignation letter says. “But yesterday, the Maine Democratic Party said the people who built this movement will “have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for US Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like.”
…
“That work matters. It cannot be treated as disposable. The people who knocked thousands of doors, organized their communities, and built local teams across the state deserve transparency, respect, and a meaningful voice in what comes next.”
Toth concludes there is “no path forward to defeating Susan Collins without honoring and engaging the grassroots movement” the Platner campaign built across Maine. The future of the race should not be decided without the people who made the movement possible, Toth says.
“You deserve to have your voice heard and it is incumbent on each of you now to hold the Democratic Party accountable.”
Volunteers for Platner have broadly supported the nomination of Troy Jackson in place of Platner. On Friday morning, the Maine AFL-CIO also endorsed Jackson.
“We can pass Medicare for all, we can take on corporate power and the politicians in their pocket,” Jackson said in his Senate announcement video. “I’ve won in deep red Trump country and progressive cities like Portland and Bangor.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My instinct is that the decision to destroy Platner’s campaign based solely on allegations with no due process has likely cost the Democrats the chance to defeat Susan Collins, but where there’s life there’s hope.
What Was This Really All About?
And I’ll end with Thomas Neuberger’s point about what the Democratic establishment really wants: to prevent change:
Someone wanted him gone, and they found a way. Someone who? And why? What will the outcome be?
Let’s take these one at a time. Someone who?
The perp, I think, is the Democratic establishment — the party in Maine, the Senate bigs in DC, the vast machine that composes the DNC, its well-paid consultant class and wide-ranging servicing groups like print and televised media. The pile-on, when the accusations were more smoke than fire, began early, were clearly political, and deployed in defense of Janet Mills, the establishment’s preferred choice. Platner’s anti-genocide, anti-AIPAC stance didn’t help with that group, and is likely a cause on its own of his strong opposition.
And chief among all the perps is Sen. Chuck Schumer, who clearly places seating compliant Democratics above beating Republicans.
…
That answers the why. Control of the party comes before winning elections. And support for Israeli genocide is clearly a must, certainly for Schumer and other top Dems of his type. In case he hadn’t heard, total Israel-related contributions to Schumer total $1,727,974. That money buys something, happily given or not.
What’s Next?
The battle is shaping up now. As I write, I’m watching Rebecca Traister on MSNOW say Platner was always disliked by establishment Maine and national Democrats, largely because he brought people real hope for change. Yes, that’s what she said: real hope for real change. In my view, only the genuinely anti-establishment can do that.
…
Watch how the Party decides, and whom they nominate. Will Maine get a Harris-like coronation? A loyalist, solid pretender, or someone more real?
Then watch how Maine voters respond, especially those inspired by Platner’s rebellious stance. You’ll learn a lot.
The fight to return the Democratic Party to its historic role as a representative for the working classes will be long and brutal, and it may be too little too late in the context of the fascist Trump regime, but it’s a long way from over.
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