By Jeffrey Blehar
Saturday, July 11, 2026
It’s finally over. Graham Platner has filed papers with the state of Maine confirming his
withdrawal from the race for the Democratic Senate nomination. So allow me to
celebrate the End of an Error with this small coda to National Review’s
recent immersion in the esoteric gnostic details of “Platneriana.” Many
questions remain unanswered, alas: We will never know just exactly how he got
expelled from an ultra high-class boarding school that doesn’t expel anyone,
save for the gravest of violations, after his first semester in high school.
(Or why his parents felt the need to send him there in first place.) Nor have
we ever heard the opinions of anyone who ever served in any capacity with him
overseas. Wonder what we’d find out?
I’m pretty sure that this, more than any fundraising
leverage the DNC might wield, is what ultimately drove Platner out; there are
still sins he would prefer to keep blessedly unknown. And because men without
dignity are not in the habit of late-acquiring it, even Platner’s resignation
was ultimately undercut by his own sheer trashiness.
When Platner announced his formal exit from the Maine
Senate race last night, he also sent it out to America via
tweet, as a farewell. And it was a perfectly brown note upon which to exit,
yet more mush from a bleating, braggart wimp. (“On June 9, 156,084 Mainers
voted for a new kind of politics,” he begins, ignoring the reality that he was
the only remaining serious candidate on the ballot by then.)
He continues on about this “new kind of politics”:
[It] is
representative of people in the real world – not billionaires, oligarchs, or
the political establishment. Mainers voted for Medicare for All; to ban
billionaires from buying elections; and for an end to taxpayer-funded genocide
and forever wars. They voted for time and dignity; for strong unions and jobs
they can raise families on; for the hope of buying a home; for the chance to
retire with grace.
People are
desperate for change. For this broken system to be righted. For the American
experiment to be furthered. Over the past eleven months, thousands and
thousands of Mainers poured their hearts, time, and talent into a movement to
deliver that vision. I will be forever grateful to them. And in submitting this
letter today, I seek to further the movement we have built together, and the
future we believe in.
My name may have
been on the ballot, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. As
such, please consider this notice as my official withdrawal from consideration
for this office.
All nice and reasonably professional, you might think, as
far as campaign communications go. Yes, it’s larded with nonsense and cant, but
such self-pitying rationalizations are inevitable in bitter defeat, and should
be accordingly discounted. In fact, one might even suspect it was written for
him by someone else.
Particularly because the real Graham Platner – the
anti-social, privileged, communist failson mouthing slogans – finally emerges
from behind all that professionally crafted guff right at the end. Platner’s
final sign-off:
“F*ck ICE. Free Palestine. Up the hearts.”
Ah, now that’s more like the scumbag I know. Of course,
because this is Platner, my first thought is: when he said “f*ck ICE” did he
mean that in a gay way, or more like a viking? And I don’t even
want to know what “up the hearts” even means – no offense, but it sounds like
some kind of commie gobbledygook to me. But as for “free Palestine”
being Platner’s final sign-off? That’s a tell. That explains why he was
recruited by his handlers in the first place. The Democratic Socialists of
America may talk its programmatic game about fully automated luxury communism
and whatnot, but what ultimately animates this movement, putting the
steel in its spine, is the emotional charge of an enemy to unite against.
No comments:
Post a Comment