cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38323356

https://archive.ph/wip/7kgpn

Oct. 31, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET Michelle Goldberg

Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic state legislator and newspaper editor, told me that outsiders didn’t fully understand how radicalizing the second Trump presidency has been for ordinary Democrats. Even senior citizens, he said, were becoming “fire-breathing leftists. They’re just pissed off.”

These voters understood that Platner had made mistakes, but they saw him as a fighter. “Five years ago, he would have been dead in the water, I think,” said O’Brien, who now works with the labor movement. “But this is such an unprecedented time. I think a lot of people really believe that we need somebody who can effectively fight against fascism.”

Maine is an overwhelmingly white state, but it’s not just white guys who feel this way. “We’re sticking by him,” said Safiya Khalid, a Somali American activist and former member of the Lewiston City Council.

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    3 days ago

    Like, you making the accusation that Platner is a secret nazi does not a secret nazi Platner make

    Yeah no. The totenkopf that was on his chest for 20 years does that. And the whole Blackwater thing doesn’t help. Nor does the homophobia.

    This was oppo research released to have this exact effect, t

    Wait… the opposition has a time machine and were able to go back 20 years, drug him, tattoo a totenkopf on his chest, and then trick him from realizing it was there for the next 20 years? And they are wasting it on THIS?

    So like, the oppo worked, on you.

    If “the oppo”'s goal was to make me dislike a nazi and really prefer we not tell all our POC/LBGTQIA+/Women “allies” to fuck off because this is a man’s world? Mission successful?

    Intent does not change facts. And if you think it is so important to spite the facsists by electing a nazi to the Senate…