The 2026 Maine Democratic Primary for US Senate took place yesterday. The New York Times lost.
The rest of us won. In a document on Graham Platner's campaign website detailing what he calls his Defend Democracy Agenda is this paragraph:
For too long, the promise that all people are created equal has remained unfinished business in our Constitution. Passing the Equal Rights Amendment would help complete that work by making clear that equality under the law cannot be denied because of sex. But we must also confront how protections like those in the Fourteenth Amendment—written to defend the freedom of formerly enslaved people and guarantee equal rights—have been twisted over time to shield powerful corporations while the rights of real people are attacked. Communities of color, LGBTQ Americans, immigrants, and others have too often found those protections turned against them instead of working in their defense. We need a 21st-century Constitution that restores the original purpose of these guarantees: equal rights under the law, protected for every person in this country
Women's issues come up repeatedly in Platner's platform. Defending the right to choose abortion; legislating against government intrusion into women's lives; passing the Equal Rights Amendment to constitutionally guarantee equality in the law for women. All are on Platner's agenda for the Senate. Additionally, Platner is a proponent of policy that improves the lives of working women (and men): early childcare for all; healthcare reform including Medicare for All; funding and protecting Public education; clean air and water and a healthier environment.
The 989 American billionaires and the megacorporations who offshore their wealth fare less well. Platner's tax plan to "End Billionaire Welfare" is a must read for understanding how Platner intends to work for legislation that imposes a modicum of burden on the ultra wealthy in repayment of the some of the debt they owe society for their obscene riches. For the rest of us, Platner promises to work to ease the burden with protections to social security, increases in the Child Tax Credit, and a buffer against tax hikes on the poor and working classes thanks to "making the wealthy pay their share."
Also in the platform are policies that address campaign finance flaws and other crises of democracy; housing (including the epidemic of private homes being sucked up by hedge funds while home buying becomes more out of reach for each generation)l; tribal rights; increased protections and enhancements of quality of life for the disabled; the promise to prevent pointless wars, overspending on the military budget-- including especially to aid Israel's genocide in Gaza-- while underspending on those who sign up for the military or who have served.
Platner's run-of-the-mill Centrist Democratic Primary opponent (and Chuck Schumer's pick), Governor Janet Mills had already seen the writing on the wall and suspended her campaign, so one has to wonder what this outburst of anti-Platner propaganda in the past few weeks has been for. Maine voters foiled the campaign of the mainstream media and the Democratic and Republican establishment who are terrified of a candidate who promises to bring change to the system that elevated our feeble-brained elite and its infrastructure in an effort to rise the tide and lift the boats of all of his constituency. But do not count the media campaign out just yet, because the stakes are not just about Maine, but about what a Platner defeat of Susan Collins portends for the nation. It's an effort to besmirch Platner before his energy infests the Senate.
Privilege is when your identity comes before your socialism. But a socialist whose platform is not for women, for African Americans, for Native Americans, for new and would be Americans, for Gay and Trans men and women, for working men and women of all identities, for old and young and in between, for solidarity with those across the globe, isn't really a socialist. Take time with Platner's extensive Platform and it is impossible to to miss why the Privileged and powerful and the bought gatekeepers of the status quo in the mainstream media do not want what he brings to the table in its full power and glory.
