Graham Platner: Another Rising Star Emerges in The Democratic Party

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

05-31-2026

I agree with a lot of what he says, he speaks to the very basic things people desire and need. But he's not the first one to do that. And, he's right, capitalism makes us sick though he doesn't give the culprit a name.  What is his solution? As far as I can see it is in transforming the Democratic Party in to party that can bring about the reform he talks about in this video. I believe that experience teaches us that this is not the case.. 

Look at AOC. Look at Sanders or Mamdani, so many will fall in to place as they refuse to recognise that there is only one way any of these, mild reforms really, can be realised and that is through a mass movement, a working class mass movement that would welcome small capitalists like Graham Platner as allies in this struggle. 

Small capitalists, that middle layer, are also super exploited by big business. Some of them can move to the right but some can move to the left and be allies of  workers and the labor movement depending on the balance of class forces and the program, strategy and tactics of the workers' movement. They will, as will most workers, be drawn to a program that speaks to their needs and a movement that has the power to win it.

In addition, an independent political party of the working class opposed to both the big business parties is key, none of what he says is possible without that development. How that will develop is another issue, but as a mass movement on the ground develops it is inevitable in my mind that it will take political expression, candidates will arise out of that movement, maybe individually at first who can say. The ability to trap such movements and usher them in to the Democratic Party is waning. 

I will wait and see what he does when the power gives him options. Mamdani has no program for dealing with them. They are ruthless, they are killers. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported, armed and defended a genocide. Only a powerful and committed movement of the working class, committed to ending this system of production and building an economic system of production based on human need not profit can accomplish this social transformation. 

It's not about integrity, he seems like a decent guy. That's not the issue; the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

The mid terms are looking to be very interesting indeed and we can return to this issue again.