It’s possible to be both frustrated with the Beltway consultants and pols in the Democratic Party and not take positions on the issues that are out of the mainstream.
But a recent column in the New York Times by Michelle Goldberg about the troubled candidacy of Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner posits it as one or the other. You can be an establishment corporate Democrat or you can be a Democratic Socialist. Here’s part of what Goldberg wrote after visiting the state:
Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic state legislator and newspaper editor, told me that outsiders didn’t fully understand how radicalizing the second Trump presidency has been for ordinary Democrats. Even senior citizens, he said, were becoming “fire-breathing leftists. They’re just pissed off.”
These voters understood that Platner had made mistakes, but they saw him as a fighter. “Five years ago, he would have been dead in the water, I think,” said O’Brien, who now works with the labor movement. “But this is such an unprecedented time. I think a lot of people really believe that we need somebody who can effectively fight against fascism.”
Platner is, you might say, damaged goods. He has a Nazi death camp symbol tattooed on his chest and, among other stupid things, he’s called rural Mainers dumb and racist. He’s probably the least electable candidate in a big primary field. And yet he continues to have the support of Bernie Sanders and his wing of the party.
I share the anger of Platner’s supporters with Trump and with our party’s establishment and yet I’m a moderate. I think you can be pissed off without becoming a fire-breathing leftist. I did not become radicalized because (outside of New York) I don’t think radicals win elections. Instead I became intensely pragmatic. If anything, Trump didn’t move me to the left, but even more to the center.
What’s going on with Platner is a continuation of something that started within the Democratic Party and among liberals after Trump’s first election in 2016 and then again after the George Floyd killing in 2020. A lot of liberals took their anger and went way to the left. They lost their minds with calls to defund the police.
People like me took our anger and moved way to the practical. All I want to do is win elections. If I thought that Democratic Socialists could defeat Trump’s candidates, I’d support the Socialists — even while I’d strongly disagree with many of their policies.
That’s because I think the present threat to our democracy comes from Trump and his sycophants in the Republican Party. I might not always be voting for the Democrat, but I’ll always sure as hell vote against the Trump Republican.
But for whatever reason a large chunk of my party can’t seem to separate ideology from practical politics. Their justified anger at Trump and Trumpism didn’t focus them on winning elections, but on running over an idealogical cliff.
And Maine is a whole lot more like Virginia and New Jersey than it is like New York City. In fact, about 90% of the country is more like Virginia and New Jersey than it is like New York. So, Maine could be an interesting test when they get around to their Senate primary on June 9th. Will Maine Democrats vote their anger and pick Platner, who could easily lose to Republican incumber Susan Collins, or will they pick one of the many more electable candidates on their ballot?
But I do share with the hard-left their disdain for the comfortable, smug Washington insiders — the high-paid consultants and pollsters — who think they can understand the country from inside the Beltway. The DNC, now led by the clueless and uninspiring Ken Martin, is the perfect example. They rejected a much better candidate for that post in Wisconsin’s own Ben Wikler simply because the insiders knew Martin better. He was one of them.
Anger’s not always a bad thing if it can be channeled into constructive action. Support for Graham Platner and socialism is, to say the least, anything but constructive.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
I couldn’t agree with this statement more: “People like me took our anger and moved way to the practical. All I want to do is win elections.” The moment Trump won in 2016 virtually the only question anyone one the left, or anyone who cares about democracy, should have been asking themselves is “how do we get the most electable candidates to make sure this never happens again?”
If you haven’t read it already, I think you’d be very interested in the Editorial the New York Times wrote a few weeks ago about the strength of moderate candidates in today’s society. In my opinion, it should be cited whenever the far left attempts to justify supporting candidates like Platner.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/opinion/moderation-strategy-democrat-republican-center.html
“The moderation that has worked best in recent years is not a sober, 20th-century centrism that promises to protect the status quo. It is more combative and populist. It tends to be left of center on economics and right of center on social issues (with abortion being an exception). “Angry centrism is a very potent way to run,” said Lakshya Jain, a founder of Split Ticket, a political data firm. Rather than locating itself midway between the two parties, this new centrism promises sweeping change while criticizing the two parties as out of touch.”
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Yes, that Times editorial was brilliant. I’ve been meaning to write about it. Thanks for bringing it up.
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The far left are insufferable nincompoops, and they work hard and successfully to lose winnable elections. One of the greatest gifts they ever gave to the Republican Party was the phrase “Defund the police,” a gift that keeps on giving. It amazes and infuriates me that the far left has not learned this, and they fail to understand that there is no demographic in America that believes defunding the police is a good idea.
Working class voters who vote Republican believe that at the top of the list of issues are putting food on the table (the economy, stupid!), tax policy (which affects their ability to put food on the table), border security, and immigration. They do NOT care about “pronouns” or being politically correct, or being “Woke.” They do not vote for people who attach any importance to those things.
Democrats recently crushed Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City. Our democracy and possibly even our lives depend upon Democrats learning the right lessons from these victories. Democrats won because they oppose Trump, who is a dangerous, vile and corrupt autocrat who swore an oath to defend and protect the Constitution and is instead attacking the Constitution and the rule of law. Democrats won because, contrary to Trump’s rosy view of the economy, grocery shoppers know that prices are climbing and Democrats have correctly pointed that out.
I understand that many Democrats have responded to Trump by moving to the left, or to the far left or caused them to consider supporting candidates who do well in a Democratic primary, but who have no chance of winning a general election. This is an example of learning the wrong lessons from recent political history. Democrats need to win elections and moving to the center gives them the best chance of doing so.
I share the left’s fear and loathing of Trump, and their justifiable anger with the inbred and arrogant Democratic establishment, but I do not share their emphasis on things that are just not important, or their support for chuckleheads like Graham Platner, or their support for socialism, which only Bernie Sanders can pull off. Like Dave, and like James Carville, my response to Trump has caused me to be intensely pragmatic. It’s about winning elections, and you can’t do that from your seat in left field bleachers.
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“Democrats recently crushed Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City.”
To put a finer point on it, a Democrat Socialist recently crushed a Democrat candidate in New York City.
It was Democracy at its finest, as it was when Trump got elected. Mamdani is just the other side of the Trump coin.
For the most part it really does come down to putting food on the table. If your biggest concern is “Democracy”, well you gotta be rich to think like that.
I don’t blame NYC voters but I don’t think they will get anything other than short term solutions. I think we’re getting the same thing with Trump … K shaped economy is great for asset holders, not so great for everyone else.
Social unrest turning into an actual revolution is coming up more on the economic podcasts I listen to. And the demographics are changing. Boomers and Gen X are gradually losing the numbers game. AARP is already circling the wagons.
I for one am rooting for the younger generations to take back their futures that government inflation and corruption have stolen from them. Trump and Mamdani won’t get them there but might be useful steps in the right direction. I think means testing social security will be the first big battle.
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