this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
77 points (98.7% liked)
chat
8613 readers
97 users here now
Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.
As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.
Thank you and happy chatting!
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Platner is 41, and he had a military career from age 19 to 34. That involves reaffirming the military 3 times. ⅔ of his time and all of his formative experiences as an adult are in the military. He joined Erik Prince's cabal over 10 years after it became one of the most scandalous companies in the world, and after being part of the Bernie campaign.
People who "saw how bad it was and how much damage it does it the world" quit after just 1 tour. I differ from most Hexbears here in that I can forgive someone who got out in their early 20s after the mandatory 4 years and then put as much distance as possible between themselves and the institution. I've had 2 roommates like that.
His pivot after the military was not to a proletarian job, but directly to being a 3-person business owner, who by his own admission would be deeply in the red if it weren't for veterans' benefits. His career path is troop to worse troop to petty bourgeois to political candidate. It's as suspicious as can be. The only times he's worked for someone else were part-time as a bartender in DC while in college on the GI bill. This is not someone who knows what it is like to be exploited year after year, to live paycheck to paycheck, to be barely getting by under the boot of capitalism.
The null hypothesis here is that he is grifting, using progressive talking points to advance his career.
I'm not going to lose sleep over it because 70% of the Senate is worse, in politics or in deed. But I wouldn't trust him one iota.
I don't follow the logic that going from "petty bourgeois" to political candidate is "suspicious". Suspicious would be going to some political consulting company with murky ties or to some private security contracting firm. Instead, the shellfish farming endeavor signals a marking point in his career and a potential turning point in his world view.
Now your highlighting of his length and frequency of service is valid, and concerning. All anyone can do though, is hope that he has had a real change of heart. There will be no way to tell until he gets into office. If he gets into office and totally flips on everything he campaigned on, it would be one of the biggest political betrayals ever, even more so than someone like Fetterman since there is at least some potential medical explanation there.
People don't just change everything about themselves on a dime in their late 30s. In a person's 20s they might take 3 years to have a substantial transformation.
In his campaign he is literally just saying shit. There's an opening to the left of the Democratic center and he's leveraging it. There's nothing to betray besides very shallow words; he's not a part of any organization and has no political history beyond volunteering for the campaign that had the largest ever number of volunteers. To any longtime and sincere observer of politics, this looks like opportunism. He is oriented towards the interests of the military and of business owners. Even AOC and Bernie are far to the left of him.
Depending on low-wage employment for a living for several years, or some equivalent experience of subordination, is what gives you class consciousness in a country full of temporarily inconvenienced millionaires. Having a high-tipped position for a few seasons, or taking over a 3-employee business, does not suffice to align you with the interests of the American working class.
I don't live in Maine. If I did, I would support someone else's primary campaign. If Platner won, I'd hold my nose and vote for him over Collins, but not expect anything.
Your fixation on working class cred is really bizarre. I generally agree with everything else you're saying though.
No wonder about that, I'm a socialist.
I may be a weird kind of anarchist who wants to do a cultural revolution around an emergent class of people who escape debt and wage slavery by forming cooperatives around housing and work and collective defense.
But I am still a socialist through and through: I see the world through the lens of class; I know that people's habits and loyalties are mostly a function of what their direct material interests are and what they're personally accustomed to; I lend more credence to what people do rather than what they say.
And Platner's record is as a chauvinistic war criminal who happens to have said some progressive things in the past few years. As a US senator he will serve MIC interests, small business interests, probably national-bourgeois interests, while being pro-LGBT+, pro-universal healthcare, possibly pro-union, and possibly less interventionist in foreign policy.