"I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39081381

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39081380

Jon Queally
Nov 15, 2025

Echoing recent viral comments by music superstar Billie Eilish, Maine Democratic candidate for US Senate Graham Planter is also arguing that the existence of billionaires cannot be justified in a world where working-class people with multiple jobs still cannot afford the basic necessities of life.

In video clip posted Friday of a campaign event in the northern town of Caribou from last month, Platner rails against the “structures” of an economy in which billionaires with vast personal fortunes use their wealth to bend government—including the tax code—to conform to their interests while working people are left increasingly locked out of controlling their own destinies, both materially and politically.

    • Bristlecone@lemmy.world
      1·
      18 days ago

      I appreciate your insight on this. Looking at everything done and said about the tattoo and his old Reddit posts, I am definitely more comfortable voting for this guy still than his opposition who we know is a child rapist capitulator, without question. Bernie literally still supports this guy

      • balsoft@lemmy.ml
        11·
        15 days ago

        Lesser-evil politics in action. “I will vote for this literal nazi, who says nazi shit and has a nazi tatoo, because the alternative is worse somehow”. I’m sure there were people further right than Hitler in 1930s germany, and germans just voted strategically to keep them out.

        • Bristlecone@lemmy.world
          1·
          15 days ago

          We on the left have no grace. We can’t allow people to make mistakes, and we lose ourselves to infighting. It’s our biggest problem. You obviously didn’t even go looking into the back story on the tattoo, this guy is “just a nazi” to you, even though he is actually saying and doing things that are appropriate

          • balsoft@lemmy.ml
            1·
            15 days ago

            The guy literally went to Iraq to “kill people”, three times, once as a mercenary.

            He shelled urban areas with mortar fire despite being ordered not to.

            He justified killing “thousands” or “millions” of Iraqis by “Our way of life is better”.

            Afterwards, he described the whole affair as an “excellent experience”.

            He defended US military members having SS tattoos.

            He had a distinctly nazi tattoo on his chest for 20 years.

            If that’s not a nazi I don’t know what is.

            It’s not infighting, it’s defending our movement from being co-opted by nazis, literally “national-socialists”: people with extremely reactionary and inhumane views, trying to get support from the working class by promising vaguely progressive economic policies.

            I am a believer that people can change. But he has to show it. As a first, he has to acknowledge his pas actions and words, and what they represent, instead of feigning ignorance. He has to at least explicitly say that he no longer holds nazi views, is remorseful for his past actions and comments, and publicly apologize.

  • balsoft@lemmy.ml
    53·
    18 days ago

    As long as he doesn’t admit that his military service was unethical and wrong, and retract&apologize for his earlier racist comments justifying thousands of iraqi deaths with “our way of life is better than theirs” or something like that, I will just assume he’s a nazi trying to pander to the working class.