Downward mobility has never had a good name. Which is sad, really, because it is not immoral, but rather the inevitable outcome of a society with mobility. It is not fair, I think, that people who fail to maintain or exceed their born socioeconomic status are discussed as having willfully squandered opportunity. As lacking in gratitude and overflowing with entitlement. Maybe they just didn’t have it in them! It’s not their fault!

Graham Platner, the cosplay working-man from Maine anointed to save the Democrats, has tested my stance in this area.

As news broke that he had allegedly raped a woman—news building upon existing reporting on his realness (cruddiness) towards the ladies—Platner’s senatorial hopes were dashed. Well, prospects, not hopes. He dropped out with a video in which he blamed a sinister “they” for holding him back. Whether “they” was women or Jews (I have a theory!) or someone else entirely, I cannot say.

The underlying reason Platner has so fascinated me, as a candidate, is that he’s the rare politician whose entire shtick is not being Jewish. This is an impressive feat given that most politicians outside of Israel are non-Jews as well. Most of the planet is gentile. What would it even mean to be very gentile?

But Platner takes being not-Jewish to new heights. It’s not just that he’s anti-Israel, which could be said of plenty of politicians including some Jewish ones. It’s not even the combination of anti-Israel politics and a big ol’ Nazi tattoo, since obscured, on his chest.

Nor is it those two facts combined with the foodstuff he so famously farms: oysters. Delicious, but frowned upon by observant Jews, who are correct about pork but, I regret to inform, missing out on oysters.

No, it’s all of those plus the fact that he is a nepo baby, a rich kid, a pampered son’o’privilege, who, thanks to the happenstance fact of looking the part of Mr. White Working Class, managed to be hailed Maine’s Democratic saviour on the basis of his appearance of authenticity-cred. If he were nerdy, nebbishy, intellectual-seeming, euphemistically New York, and also a fancy........

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