By Jonathan Chait
Monday, July 06, 2026
Last September, the progressive strategist Morris Katz
confessed to The
New
Yorker that the process by which he decided that Graham Platner was
qualified to run for U.S. Senate required less time than drinking a cup of
coffee. Actually, it seems to have been less a confession than a boast. “Within
a few minutes of talking to him, I was, like, ‘This guy owes it to the country
to run for Senate,’” Katz recalled.
In the 10 months that have followed, a procession of
unflattering stories have made clear how dreadfully irresponsible it was for
Democrats to entrust the task of flipping what seems like the most necessary
seat to secure their potential Senate majority to a man who had never run for
office or led an organization of any size. The almost-certain final straw is a Politico
report that alleges
Platner raped a woman named Jenny Racicot in 2021. The story includes messages
referring to the incident sent by Racicot two years later, before Platner
contemplated running for office. Platner called any allegation of nonconsensual
behavior “categorically untrue.”
There is no longer much question as to whether Platner is
suitable for public office, and even less question as to whether plucking him
from political obscurity made any sense. A more pertinent question is: What
could possibly drive a professional political strategist to support such a
rapid promotion in mere minutes?
One plausible reason appears to be political ideology.
Katz and his allies have sought out candidates who are willing to castigate the
Democratic Party for selling out the working class—which necessitates, or at
least militates toward, candidates who have no experience inside the party. And
whereas this ideological orientation requires an intensity of commitment, it
does not require a mastery of policy detail.
Dan Moraff, one of the strategists who helped select and
vet Platner, “wants his candidates to back Medicare for All and characterize
the Israel-Hamas conflict as a genocide, but beyond that, doesn’t believe
voters care about detailed proposals,” The Wall Street Journal reported
last month. Having a policy agenda that could fit comfortably on a Post-it note
without omitting any important details certainly speeds up the process.
Platner, indeed, has boiled down nearly all political problems to the perfidy
of sinister oligarchs. Whatever the merits of this worldview, it does not
demand much knowledge.
But a second, at least as important reason for Platner’s
lightning-fast ratification was that he has the desired look for the part.
Donald Trump has described liking his appointees to come right out of “central
casting,” by which he means that they look like a Hollywood version of the
position they are filling.
Katz and Moraff have taken an almost literal approach to
this “central casting” criteria, searching for candidates whom the camera loves
and then offering them to an adoring progressive fanbase. Platner’s
qualifications in this regard are obvious. He has a masculine baritone, and
works with his hands. Last year, Katz filmed a video of his new protégé
shucking oysters, chopping wood, swinging kettlebells, and speaking directly to
the camera in a muddy sweatshirt about how the oligarchy had screwed their
beloved state.
The performance helped make Platner a political star. “I
flew here to profile Graham Platner,” wrote
Ana Marie Cox in The New Republic last September, “because his
announcement video for his Senate campaign (produced by the same company that’s
done work for Zohran Mamdani) struck the same deep chord in me as it did in the
millions of others who watched it.” A stream of adulatory profiles followed.
It soon emerged that Katz’s abbreviated assessment of
Platner had missed, or overlooked, troubling details. He had posted
inflammatory messages on Reddit and gotten a tattoo associated with Nazi war
criminals. Platner claimed that his past indiscretions were the products of
post-traumatic stress, and promised that he was a changed man with no
additional skeletons to hide.
More skeletons kept turning up, though. Platner had
sexted with at least half a dozen women after he was married, and reportedly
lied about what he knew about his tattoo. He assured Senate backers that no
additional negative stories would come out, only for his promise to crumble
again.
Platner’s enthusiasts initially continued to support his
campaign and reject the evidence of his misconduct. When The New York Times
reported that a past girlfriend alleged he had physically abused her, the paper
dismissed her testimony on account of her being a Republican, ignoring the
discrepancies in Platner’s own defense.
Matt Stoller, a researcher at the left-wing American
Economic Liberties Project, wrote on X,
“Graham Platner represents a rejection of Dem HR lady politics.” In a follow-up
post,
Stoller apologized for the impolitic term, but explained that he meant the
party had fallen prey to a form of corporate rule that had especially harmed
men. Human-resources departments, he wrote, “increasingly were forced to become
bagmen for monopolists who hated labor.” Despising these departments, he
reasoned, was actually progressive, because they represented the interests of
the oligarchy.
At the risk of apologizing for the corporate power
structure, one function of the HR department is to ensure the company does not
hire somebody whose background contains multiple firing offenses.
In reality, Platner was the Democratic-candidate
equivalent of the grinning empty suit who gets the job after a handshake
because the boss likes the cut of his jib. He looked like the authentic
working-class hero so many progressives wanted, so he had to be one. George
Burns once quipped,
“When you’re playing a role you’ve got to be honest. And if you can fake that,
you’ve got it made.” In politics, people call this “authenticity.” But maybe
looking and sounding like a working-class dude who hates big corporations is
not adequate qualification for high office—or even proof that you can be taken
at your word.
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