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Democrats’ leftist takeover is complete with Graham Platner’s rise in Maine US Senate race

Gov. Janet Mills of Maine has suspended her US Senate campaign after failing to raise enough money to compete in the coming Democratic primary with socialist Graham Platner — who will now almost certainly face the perpetual centrist Republican Susan Collins in the general election.

Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Kirsten Gillibrand immediately backed Platner, proving there’s virtually nothing a leftist can say or do that is disqualifying in today’s Democratic Party.

So, for 20 years you’ve had a Totenkopf skull-and-crossbones tattoo, most famously used by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary organization that led, planned and executed the Holocaust?

You’d think that picking this symbol out of all the symbols that exist in the entire world would be an issue.

Not for Schumer, self-styled defender of Jewish interests and author of the 2025 book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.”

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In keeping with his tattoo’s message, Platner has also praised the Islamic supremacists of Hamas — which, let’s face it, is not exactly extraordinary among progressives these days.

How about boosting social media posts by neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers like Stew Peters?

Does Schumer care that Platner is a self-described “long-time fan” and obsequious podcast guest of Jew-hating conspiracy theorist Nate Cornacchia?

Does it matter to Schumer that the candidate also referred to himself as a “communist”?

No, clearly the stigma of that word is fading quickly on the contemporary left.

Some Democrats laugh at the notion that Platner could be both a communist and a Nazi, even though the two ideologies are in many respects quite similar.

And this communist has also endorsed “revolutionary violence.”

Coming off the third attempted assassination of President Donald Trump by a would-be killer who embraced rhetoric virtually indistinguishable from Platner’s, you might think a major political party would be concerned about endorsing violent comments.

Not Schumer — who, to be fair, once threatened Supreme Court justices if they ruled against his partisan wishes.

What if a Democratic candidate for the Senate referred to rural white Americans as “racist and stupid”?

Not long ago that might have posed a small crisis for the national party — especially in a state like Maine, which, as it turns out, is perhaps the whitest state in the country and home to lots of rural Americans.

Platner, who plays a working-class oyster farmer, is the nepo baby of a former assistant district attorney and major Democratic donor; he attended a $75,000-per-year Connecticut boarding school.

Which is to say: If Democrats fall for his schtick they may or may not be racist, but they’re definitely stupid.

Listen, everyone makes mistakes, though perhaps mistakes less drastic than permanently inking Nazi imagery on one’s chest.

Platner keeps apologizing for every new comment that pops up, and there will almost certainly be more.

Is a man who has shown terrible temperament and judgment, little intelligence and no perceptible skill the right choice to serve in the most important deliberative body in the country?

A few years back, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the influence of socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as largely irrelevant, saying their influence extended to “like, five people.”

Ever since, Democrats have abetted the rise of the unhinged left at every turn, from communists to cultural wackos, and even those preaching revolutionary violence.

The Democratic Party has become such a big tent these days that unapologetic terror-shilling communist Hasan Piker, who tells his millions of followers to “soak the streets in capitalist blood,” has been invited into the movement by popular personalities on the mainstream left like Ezra Klein and Jon Favreau.

Unsurprising coming from fans of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a devotee of “globalizing the intifada” — or, rather, the global violent targeting of Jews.

These positions, it seems, only lift your stock on the contemporary left.

Ocasio-Cortez is quickly becoming a centrist in her party.

At this point, what could a progressive say to be shunned by Democrats?

What sin could precipitate the party’s abandonment?

It’s difficult to think of anything.

And please, don’t bring up former California gubernatorial candidate Eric Swalwell, now dealing with multiple accusations of sexual assault and rape.

Democrats lose nothing by dropping a primary candidate in a deep-blue state.

Come to think of it, the only offense that could conceivably turn the progressive left against a Democrat is openly supporting Israel, as Sen. John Fetterman has learned.

Otherwise, you’re good.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. X: @davidharsanyi

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