A Democratic Version of the Tea Party Is Emerging

One lesson of the Democratic Senate primary in Maine is that no one should underestimate the white-hot fury of the party’s voters.

In October, Graham Platner’s insurgent campaign appeared doomed. Janet Mills, Maine’s Democratic governor, had just entered the Senate primary race, reportedly at the urging of Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader. Then a barrage of devastating opposition research against Platner dropped. Journalists reported on old Reddit posts where he wrote that all cops are bastards, spoke about fighting fascism with guns and seemed to blame rape victims for their own assaults. His political director resigned. Hoping to get ahead of an even more damaging story, Platner revealed that a skull tattoo he’d gotten while he was in the Marines, when he was drunk with his friends on leave in Croatia, looked like a Nazi........

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