The Very Rapid Rise And Fall Of Graham Platner

If the headlines this morning mean anything, Graham Platner is done – put a fork in him – the Democratic Party is abandoning him as fast and dramatically as possible.  Politico says its over.  The Atlantic calls for him to be “cut loose.”  The NYTimes says he has been “abandoned.”  That’s a liberal trifecta if ever I saw one.  Conservative forces agree – the Platner effort is at an end. That which was once astonishingly ascendant is now at the bottom of the slide headed to the dumpster.  Man, did that happen fast.  What lessons can we learn from this?

First lesson – the internet and social media is really, really fast – journalism is slow.  Platner rose on a wave of internet mania.  It has become an artform to create an image and brand on the internet with great rapidity.  Whether it is a political candidate or a new product, the internet can make it look good faster and with greater result than was ever possible from an old school ad campaign.  Faster even, it would seem, than a meaningful oppo file can be built.  Given what we know to date (I have no doubt that if Platner does not formally withdraw very quickly there will be more to come) this guys oppo file is morbidly obese.  The fact that we are learning all this nastiness only late in the game is because his rise on that internet wave was far more rapid than the file could be beefed up.  Given the sparsity of voters in an off-year primary this media manipulation gives minority stakeholders like the DSA an undeserved foothold.

There are two takeaways from this lesson.  First we voters have got to get a lot smarter about how we take in information.  Even reliable sources are wrong sometimes on social media.  Look for the story, read the evidence – verify, verify, verify.  Secondly, the parties need to get a lot better at guarding their flanks.  More on this as we proceed.

Second lesson – this has never been about ideology.  Platner is far from the mainstream of the Democratic Party, and always has been.  His espoused ideology aided his internet wave and therefore, the mainstream of the Democratic Party accepted him because of his success.  His demise, now in progress, is based on personal behavior, not the fact that he is far outside the party’s mainstream.  Many think these releases from his oppo file are coming from other Democrats becasue he is failing so badly against Susan Collins.

The takeaway from this lesson is that Democrats still don’t quite see what is going on.  They want him out of the way hoping for a shot at a majority in the Senate.  (Forgetting how well candidate substitution worked for them in the last presidential election.)  But they are missing what is really happening.  The DSA is running an insurrectionist campaign to take over the Democratic Party.  That is the battle they need to fight, not the one for control of the Senate.  If they did that, by the following election cycle they might have swing voters well on their side.

Last month, when the L.A. mayoral race, turned, quite suddenly after a week of counting, from Democrat v Republican to Democrat v Socialist I wrote:

Democrats are about the naked pursuit of power.  Power they use to take money from some and spread it out to others.

That is the third lesson – this is all about power.  As the old aphorism goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  There is deep corruption here.

My wife and I are, as a part of our 250th celebration, rewatching the old HBO miniseries “John Adams.”  Just last night we watched the episode covering Adams presidency.  Much of the dramatic tension of the episode is built around the political machinations of then Vice President Thomas Jefferson in his personal pursuit of the highest office.  But that said, the politics are the sideshow in the battle between Adams and Jefferson over how best to run the nation.

But that is not what is happening anymore.  People seek office and parties seek power because such offer personal reward – not because of an argument about how best to manage the nation for all of its citizens.  If ideology plays no role in the decision making, what is left other than personal gain?

The communism of the various DSA candidates is odious.  But even it is a secondary issue here.  Russia threw off a tyrannical Tsar for a tyrannical party.  Communism was simply what enabled the party’s tyranny.  At least one party in this nation seems headed in a similar direction.