Graham Platner for... President
There is no better candidate.
It is not early to prognosticate or pontificate on who the Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party should be. It is, in fact, too late. Right now, a genocide greenlit under former President Biden has escalated into an illegal, fatal war America might very well tactically lose, if not face total strategic defeat.
I think we need to be honest about how our government actually works, in seeing how the President was able to start bombing Iran without Congressional authorization: we have an imperial presidency, yes; but we more critically have a presidency operating under emergency powers. The USA PATRIOT ACTs, the AUMF of 2001: all of these were Enabling Acts, used by every President since Bush but especially escalating under Trump to basically trammel through the US Constitution.
I’m no fan of the Constitution. It’s full of anachronistic errors borne out of an ill-made compromise with a union of slavers made even more anachronistic by the fact that that slaver class was totally smashed in a civil war. That being said, if I care about one thing, it’s that having a constitutional system of law and order where Presidents can be arrested and go to prison would be the minimal ideal. It’s not an insane thing to demand. South Korea, an established democracy, does it all the time. In Brazil, the same presidents who attempt coups are locked up.
But there can’t be any sort of justice expected with a President who operates fully with the executive authority established and granted to him. Every President before Trump, including Trump himself, self-policed to an extent. Whether it’s the tariffs, or ICE, or the actual literal shooting war with Iran, where hundreds are already dead including US servicemembers, Trump’s second term is one without any restraints, where the sky of what the US Enabling Acts enable are truly tested.
Yet he can’t be arrested or stopped. And that won’t change, until there’s an election in November 2028 and a handover of power in January 2029. Democrats, I think, understand the awesome emergency powers the President is imbued with. That’s why no matter what inane controversy plagued whatever Democratic administration in the past, whether it was President Clinton’s criminal conduct with underage minors, or President Obama’s calamity in Libya, or even President Biden’s mental degradation, they always lied, lied, lied, to cover up for literal crime. Why? To some extent, a President having that much power becomes an unconscious fact, even if a President barely uses the arsenal of tricks at his disposal. Thus, even if the President is a doddering old man, having that power carries with it respect, with some even raising that person to living godhood.
Of course, no President is God. Presidents are living men, and die like living men. If anything, they are unique in that they are mostly old, mostly white, and all men. Also, we’ve barely had 50 and just as many elections for them so insofar as data on the types of man to choose, how to choose, what types of choices should be made et cetera are all educated guesswork.
We don’t know who will beat Donald Trump, which, to be clear, involves more than just 270 electoral college votes. There is a concept of ‘too big to rig’. This is more than just the popular vote though that is important. We have to define what the “it” is in the rigging; what exactly is being rigged? The election? There are 50 states, 50 different ways of counting ballots. That’s a lot of work, and it didn’t work outside once in 2000. Theoretically and legally, they could try to do so at the ballot certification stage in Congress but that’s what January 6 was all about. Both strategies failed.
So, what next? The problem with January 6 or with changing the states’ certification is that it comes too late in the process. Or, put simply: Trump is a TV guy, and he knows this. Who actually decides who our next President is aren’t the state electoral officials, isn’t Congress, isn’t the Supreme Court: it’s the guys on the TV. On election night, every election night (and this is why Trump is so obsessed with mail-in ballots, the fact that he perceives they robbed him of an electoral victory) they are the first people that declare what the capital T Truth is, and out that information spirals, onto to TikTok feeds, onto algorithms, into even real life conversations.
If every channel, if every app said “President Trump has been declared President of the 2020 Presidential Election”, would Biden have ever become President, even if he “won” the election by legal means? No, of course not. Especially not now, ever since Trump has purged the Federal government of those who would be disloyal to his whims. Especially even more so considering that almost every social media app, from TikTok to X, to almost every TV provider from CBS to ABC and so on is owned by his lackeys.
It doesn’t even matter if Trump is the person on the ballot. It could be Vance, or some other inheritor to the GOP mantle. What matters is the infrastructure, the tens of thousands of loyalists at media and tech companies our oligarchs have installed throughout our society and government. Whoever it is the Republicans choose, they will most certainly have the means to steal the election.
Democrats, therefore, are doomed. They are doomed under Gavin Newsom as they are under AOC. When push comes to shove, and when the corporate media and then the Republican courts start declaring Vance is the President despite independent vote counters certifying the Democratic nominee won by a landslide, they will cower behind strong legalese statements. They will sue, and countersue. The Supreme Court may even rule against them, or not.
They will wait patiently. And then January 20, 2029 will roll around, and the newly illegally inaugurated Republican President will take ultimate, final action, if not before.
Last time I ranked (above) the Presidential nominees, the only serious person I actually put in S had been Ro Khanna. I also put him in F, because while I love him for being the first Democrat to truly put his name out there with Massie in opposing this illegal regime change war, he has a terrible habit of making awful, truly baffling stunningly stupid decisions.
The prime example of the memetic ‘Ro Khanna Cycle’:
Every other serious Democrat I didn’t rank higher than a B. The only person I didn’t rank at the time was Graham Platner.
I’ll be frank, I don’t know the man, and I am primed to not like him. I thought the Nazi tattoo, the gleeful military service, the Reddit posts, all of it terribly gauche for modern sensibilities. Yet it was in his response that I truly saw a spark of potential. I saw in his response an acceptance and an ownership of wrongdoing, and a genuine embrace of change, in the wanting to be a better person, something I’ve never seen in any other Democratic politician. A “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” this was not.
We’re all familiar with people in our lives who, confronted with their bad behavior, double and triple down on it. Often, it’s because of an underlying mental condition but it often also is just human stubbornness. Yet we also all know of patient saints, people who genuinely are able to pause, apologize, reflect, and come out of the other side of the bad things they’ve said or done as better people. I know many of them in my life, and I try to be one myself.
The point is, he is human, and he’s a fighter. More than that, he accepts the world for what it is. I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to him speak but I recommend it. Platner is able to, better than any other Democratic politician, articulate a vision and understanding of the modern political world. See:
As America launches into this suicidal war with Iran, I want to highlight two things Platner said that I latched onto immediately. First: it was in his belief in community building. Going back to Trump’s or whomever’s attempted seizure of power in the aftermath of the 2028 election, it will be community organizing that will end it in its tracks. It won’t be a special lawsuit by the DNC, or a #Girlboss dissent in the Supreme Court, it will be the masses organizing like they’ve never organized before.
And let me blunt: it would take a general strike. Going back to my tier list, it’s really a reflection of who could lead America to a future where they actually take power. AOC might, in some circumstances, be able to organize some of the masses. But she is far too partisan, far too tainted, and has made far too many Ro Khanna-like mistakes to be taken seriously by anyone.
Platner has made no similar mistakes. He speaks with moral clarity about issues AOC never even dreams of. Another instance in the above interview: Platner calling for legislation to improve the lives of Indigenous communities. Personally, I believe that only scratches the surface of what they are owed (including Congressional representation and even UN membership), but again, he is speaking with moral clarity on something in the real world that he with power could change.
The other hand is far less enticing.
Insofar as the “allegations” (antisemitism and whatnot), no, he is not an antisemite. He was a foolish American warrior, sent to fight a fool’s war in a far away land, and came back humbled and broken. From that dust he rebuilt himself.
See, that’s what I mean! Trump will build his own legend through venues like Bari Weiss’ CBS. We need our legend, our own leader who can mould reality around his own person, and thus wield mass popular power and achieve victory, despite impossible odds. That is how you beat fascism.
One thing is certain to me: Platner will win Maine. He will rout the DNC’s candidate by a mile and cow Susan Collins into early retirement in November. He will arrive in DC a victor and feared by many, wrongly so. But winning the swing state in 2026 will already make his run in 2028 inevitable.
This article is less an endorsement for Platner than an endorsement of its historical inevitability. In a fair election, I also have no doubt he will beat every other Democrat, Khanna included. He is the only, truly S tier candidate in contention.
I also think he’d make a good President, if he wants to be. He can finally do it all. Not just tax the rich, not just go after the lawbreakers in the Trump administration and corporate entities, though that’s part of it. Make a list, go down it:
Universal healthcare
Universal childcare
Free school breakfasts and lunches for children
An end to foreign wars
And so on. Basically, everything the Democrats have dreamt of since the Great Society will be back on the cards, and then some. I hope we can squeeze in more for Indigenous peoples. Because let’s be honest, by March 2029, a lot of people are going to be in jail. A lot of sitting members of Congress, a lot of state governors and state officials, a lot of Trump administration officials including members of the Trump family and Trump himself. And then there’s the corporate side: certainly every corrupt deal will be undone, and every executive and board who inked those deals will be thrown away in jail. What does that mean? At the very least: total Democratic majoritarian control over every single institution, with a President with as much power as Donald Trump as he is forced out of office once and for all. Not that this is desired; the law demands justice, and these people are criminals. Speaking plain logic: they must be arrested or the laws we have are meaningless. Let crime reign!
And that’s the final card, then. Who’s going to do it? Who is actually going to pull the trigger and tell not-Merrick Garland, ‘yes, arrest the former President and put him in jail and do not let him out on bail’? It won’t be Gavin Newsom. It very likely won’t be AOC, or any other minted DNC aficionado. It’ll be someone who wants it, who has the internal will to desire victory.
And, guess what? Platner talked about it, his drive to victory. He actually wants to do this, to win, to beat Donald Trump, to defeat fascism. He thinks he can, at least. I trust him, in knowing that he thinks that he can. To me, that is enough.
I therefore hope for his victory in Maine, for his ascendancy in the Senate and in the Presidential nomination, and for his many victories in the Presidency of the United States.