\n<\/p>\n
Graham Platner\u2019s most<\/span> vocal supporters are doubling down. There was a moment earlier this week \u2014 after Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced her candidacy for Senate; after a tranche of old Reddit posts triggered debate over Platner\u2019s views on everything from gun rights to racial stereotypes; and, most crucially, after video emerged of him dancing in his underwear and showing off the solid dark Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest \u2014 when it looked like the populist, oyster-shucking, anti-genocide veteran\u2019s attempt to take down Republican Sen. Susan Collins would be over before it had really even started.<\/p>\n Then new polling dropped, and it wasn\u2019t. Even after the blowup over his tattoo and history<\/a> of Reddit posts<\/a>, Platner is leagues ahead<\/a> of Mills, who was already a member of the Maine House of Representatives when Platner, drunk, 23, and on shore leave from the Marines, stumbled into a tattoo shop in Croatia and got an inked symbol whose significance, by his telling, he didn\u2019t grasp for the next 18 years. (Amid a torrent of news this week, he got it covered up.)<\/p>\n Evaluations of Platner\u2019s political viability have raised a bigger question for Democrats looking to capture the kind of energy he\u2019s drawn among voters in Maine. If the problem is that Democrats are too polished, too pro-corporate, and too catered to the elite, the solution just might be the rugged outsider, the edgy everyman \u2014 perhaps, even, the provocateur. And if the surge in support Platner saw in the wake of the scandal suggests anything, it\u2019s that voters are so sick of what the Democratic establishment has to offer, they might look past a Nazi tattoo.<\/p>\n But for those on the left who find themselves desperate for a disruption of the party\u2019s uninspiring baseline, it raises the question: Is this the best they can do?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Platner isn\u2019t the first of this style of brash, populist, mixed-bag of a candidate to try to woo the left in recent years. Sen. John Fetterman, several of whose ex-staffers have joined Platner\u2019s team, was once heralded<\/a> with similar optimism. The bald, gruff giant who wore shorts to the Capitol was at one point in time lauded as the model for the party\u2019s future. Today, he\u2019s one of the least popular Democrats in the Senate \u2014 among both voters<\/a> and staffers<\/a> leaving his office at a high clip. He\u2019s amassed Republican donors<\/a> since leaning hard into his pro-Israel tack since October 7. And he\u2019s repeatedly voted against the majority of his party<\/a> to work hand in hand with President Donald Trump<\/a> and Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n On some of the left\u2019s key policy issues, the two are almost diametrically opposed. What Fetterman once lacked in substance<\/a>, Platner makes up for in having experience as a local activist and clear policy stances on issues from Medicare for All to the genocide in Gaza. Fetterman, who once skated by heavier scrutiny of his stance on Israel, has since closely aligned<\/a> himself with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the nation\u2019s leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Platner\u2019s history as a contractor for a company previously known as Blackwater is one detail several critics have pointed to<\/a> as the place where the pro-populist base might have ordinarily drawn the line if it weren\u2019t for Platner\u2019s staunch anti-imperial and anti-genocide stance.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTake a look at our policy platform,\u201d said a spokesperson for the Platner campaign, objecting to comparisons to Fetterman. \u201cWatch Graham speak on the stump. There\u2019s a lot of substance. He takes questions across the state and listens to people\u2019s hopes, fears, dreams, aspirations and questions, and gives them answers that are stuck in real time, not to mention an expansive policy platform online.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While the similarities may reside in their aesthetics, that becomes significant when Democrats use those aesthetics to imbue authority, said Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, which recruits and backs candidates to run for state and local office with the aim to build a bench for national races like the one in Maine.<\/p>\n \u201cWho gets permission to be seen as authentic? And who gets permission to be a little unkempt?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThat is something really interesting \u2014 who is deemed authentic and who can credibly speak as a voice of the people. This particular type of brawly white dude with tattoos who can speak the visual language of what we associate with the working class,\u201d Litman said. \u201cThis is really a moment for us to collectively gut check \u2014 who gets permission to be seen as authentic? And who gets permission to be a little unkempt?\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s no reason to tear Platner down, Litman added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHere is a candidate who has very clearly excited part of the electorate that we want to reach,\u201d Litman said. \u201cTo take glee in tearing him down as opposed to curiosity about what we can learn from that and bring to our candidate of choice, is why we lose.\u201d<\/p>\n Though they wield it to divergent ends, Platner and Fetterman have both embraced a strategy of leaning into the criticism online<\/a>. In Fetterman\u2019s case, that has meant sharing increasingly bloodthirsty posts supporting Israel throughout its genocide on Gaza, while staff and constituents defect <\/a>and implore him to stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n Platner \u2014\u00a0who has apologized for both the tattoo and the posts \u2014 has shared other old posts \u201cfrom the Reddit files,\u201d as Platner has described them<\/a>, and reshared them as evidence of his conviction on other issues, from misogyny and homophobia in the Marines to veterans\u2019 mental health<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSomething I\u2019m proud of from my internet history? I spent a lot of time online encouraging other veterans to also get help through the VA,\u201d Platner\u2019s campaign posted to his Facebook page on Sunday. \u201cBecause I knew even then that it was literally saving my life. Being honest and vulnerable helps others start down the same path.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n