An oyster farmer causes a populist fire in Maine

Portland, Maine – Graham Platner is still trying to process this moment.

A month ago, the misguided American sailor was attending to his oyster farm on the coast of Maine in relative darkness. However, since he announced his offer against Senator Susan Collins (R-MAINE) two weeks ago, the 40-year-old politician has attracted national headlines, obtained more than one million dollars for his campaign and increased hopes among Democrats throughout the country that perhaps, this time, have an opportunity to expel Gop’s vag and take control of the United States Senate next year.

On Monday, Platner went to the largest crowd in his life in downtown Portland, putting more than 6,500 people screaming people in a “fighting oligarchy” rally with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with his call to combat corporate interests and the influence of multimillionaires, in both political parties. The populist message has resonated in the midst of wide dissatisfaction within the Democratic Party with its leadership and its management of President Donald Trump.

“I have not yet begun to connect emotionally with what is happening, because I don’t even know how to do it, the scale is so ridiculous. It is essentially incomprehensible,” reflected the Democratic candidate after the event in an interview with News themezone. “It’s strange because, as, I don’t get nervous because it feels so ridiculous. I don’t even know how to start driving it.”

Platner’s rapid rise to become a leading candidate to challenge Collins is a direct challenge not only for her but for Democrats in Washington, who are almost completely focused on convincing the governor of Maine Janet Mills (D) to run for the Senate and can be slow to embrace candidates with anti-edition anti-e-establishment. The possibility of a primary disputed between Mills, Platner and Jordan Wood, a former congress assistant who announced a career earlier this year, is exciting for Republicans anxious to exploit democratic divisions.

Dressed in a red work shirt, boots and blue jeans, Plattner said that Maine deserved a senator in Washington who understood and fought for the working class. He accused Collins, a veteran legislator who looked at his sixth mandate in Washington and one of the last remaining blue state republicans, of being false in expressing concerns with Trump’s policies.

“The symbolic opposition does not open hospitals. Weak convictions do not bring Roe V. Wade,” he said, referring to Collins’ votes that clarify the way for Trump’s Medicaid cuts and a Judge of the Supreme Court that revoked federal reproductive rights. “The performative policy that allows the destruction of our way of life is disqualifying for the role of American senator.”

He also urged Senate Democrats to play hard and refuse to provide the necessary votes to finance the government before a deadline of September 30. Democratic leaders are still to which their decision to allow Republicans to finance the government in March, resulting in a generalized political setback for Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.), the main Democrat in the Senate.

IGOR BOBIC / News themezone

But closing the government would not come without risks to the Democrats. In addition to keeping many federal workers out of work, it would allow Republicans to attack vulnerable Democrats before the middle of the period next year.

“We are at a point where I honestly don’t care how the opinion of an expert about how it may or may not be a government closure in an election within a year. Sorry, we are beyond that,” Platner said on Monday. “Whatever it can be done to reduce the speed of this speed towards authoritarianism that we are currently undertaking, whatever we can do to stop that is necessary and should be done.”

He added: “We have created this type of absurd to ourselves, so we can also use this absurd system that we build to do something good and perhaps slow down what is currently happening.”

The Republicans and the media of the Republican Party have described Platner “Maine’s Mamdani”, a reference to Zohran Mamdani, the 33 -year -old Democratic socialist candidate who is postulated for mayor of New York City. They also criticized the candidate for Maine’s Senate for criticizing Israel and his war in Gaza, a position that has not avoided in the campaign.

“It doesn’t matter which party is in power, Susan Collins has a proven record of putting the main main ones, creating legislation to protect their social security and support small businesses,” said the spokeswoman for the Republican National Senatorial Campaign Committee, Samantha Cantrell. “Graham Platner, on the other hand, is spending his time approaching Bernie Sanders and defending his radical and antiisraelí agenda.”

It is an accusation that Platner, a competitive instructor of gun shooters and firearms, called “absurd”.

“I am quite sure that Zohran does not spend his weekends in the rank of weapons,” he said. “I am quite sure that Mr. Mamdani does not spend an immense amount of time passing with his friends, who are all Trump voters. However, he also shows that if you try to do one thing for working people in this country, the Republicans will call you the most left -handed job I might think about it.

The socialist label may not be so dirty in Trump’s era. His administration recently took a 10% participation in the Intel Chips Manufacturing Company about the objections of very few Republicans that would normally have been shouting from the roofs about socialism if a Democratic president had done so. In addition, the movement was animated by populists like Sanders and Platner.

“The fact that if private companies invest in things, they can own, but when the American people invest in things, they are not allowed to have a property, I think it is really ridiculous,” Platner told News themezone.

Unlike most Democrats, Platner also adopted a more toned approach to regulate weapons, which are popular in Maine’s hunting and rural communities. When asked what forms of weapons supported by a horrible massive shooting in Minnesota, he said he supported the laws of the red flag “that are written in such a way that they do not prevent the ability of legal owners of weapons of having access to their firearms.”

Even so, Platner’s progressive opinions about the economy, and the simple fact that it was completely unknown a month ago, are why the main Democrats still expect a more conventional and experienced candidate as the governor of Maine Janet Mills (D) jumps in the Senate’s career. Mills said last week that he is “considering seriously” to do it, but he is not in a hurry to announce his plans.

However, at 77, Mills’s age could be a problem if he decides to run in the Democratic primaries at a time when the disastrous decision of former President Joe Biden to run for re -election in 2024 has made voters skeptical of the major candidates.

“I feel that people like Susan Collins, like Janet Mills, people like [Independent Maine Sen.] Angus King, whom I adore, should depart and mentor from some of the youngest voices approaching and really revitalize the Democratic Party, “said Dot Ollier, 72, a Brunswick real estate agent.” I feel that the game has become very obsolete. So I think we need to shake things. “

The Washington Post through Getty Images

Platner said that it is generally easier to motivate voters and generate political support with fresher candidates, although he made an exception to Sanders, 83, and his appeal for younger Americans. He also criticized the Democrats for staying with Biden despite the clear evidence of their aging.

“The American people are sick and tired that they are told that what they are seeing with their own eyes is not happening, be it an economic system that is clearly not intended to support them, be it a genocide in Gaza and if that is a clearly aged candidate,” he said.

Sanders also cited Platner’s position on Gaza as a reason to support his offer against Collins.

“One of the reasons why I love Graham Platner in the Senate is that he is willing to say more money for the Israeli war machine that is destroying Gaza people,” the senator said on Monday.

Maine is one of the best collection opportunities of the Senate of the Democrats, and a state that they need to win to have some hope of recovering control of the Senate in 2026. Harris took the State for seven points in the presidential elections of 2024, and Collins has seen that their survey collapses during the first six months of the second term of Trump, although the surveys have lost the preferences of the State before. Democrats will be anxious to link it with Trump’s cuts with rural medical care and other popular government programs this time.

Collins had a relatively quiet August break. Like other Republicans, it celebrated very few public events. When he did, appearing in a tape cutting ceremony for a new path in Searsport last week, he was received by teasing and boos of angry liberal protesters with his complicity perceived with Trump. It is a notable change for Collins, who celebrated more than a dozen public events in August 2019, summer before his previous re -election campaign.

The main ones who attended a noisy demonstration of Sanders in Portland on Monday said the legislative history of Collins under Trump would persecute her again.

“Someone needs to tear their image of being moderate, because it is not,” said Liz Moberg, an artist withdrawn from southern Portland. “She only votes covert when she will be the only person who votes against something horrible. But knowing that she is not making any effort to convince any other member of her party to do something differently, she has a lot of power and that she is not using it.”

Mike Turcotte, a Bangor retired ethics professor, said that the Democrats needed a Senate candidate who did not simply echo his famous Vermont neighbor.

“If you mimic the same, I’m out of here,” Turcotte said about Platner before hearing him talk on Monday. “Do we need another Bernie? Sanders has been saying this for 20, 30 years. What are you for? I understand that we are angry. I understand that there is a lot of partisanship. This country cannot survive unless we think beyond this.”

After Platner pronounced his comments, which they received multiple ovations standing, Turcotte told News themezone that he liked what he heard, including a poetic Stemwinder about the reconstruction of the American dream.

“When we reformed our democracy, that our freedom is a different type of freedom,” Platner said in his speech, “a freedom to live with the dignity and fulfillment that the society we deserve gives us, where instead of dreaming of a life where we can spend, we can afford a life that allows us to dream.”