The Platner lesson
If we don't make room for outsiders, we'll get a lot more unsuitable candidates.
A democracy is a system of government that’s of the people, by the people and for the people. A shame we never took the time to define who exactly we mean by the people.
Modern politics is dominated by professionals with fancy degrees, polished experience and impeccable credentials. They’re the kind of people who attract donor money as well as the backing of those who run mainstream parties.
Regular people who aren’t lawyers, who don’t speak in pre-approved code, who have imperfect resumes, who try to uphold universal values but don’t always know precisely what words to say to avoid getting in trouble, candidates who are a tad rough around the edges, they’ve got little chance to be accepted as mainstream political standard-bearers unless they are already household names.
Under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party of Canada was starting to open the door to those kinds of candidates but alas, the party’s base is controlled by the trucker wing of institutional vandals and that’s not better. We need regular people who want to use the power of their office to uphold the rule of law against anarchy, chaos, and the kind of clubby atmosphere that means the same established voices are always the ones being heard the loudest.
On the side of progressive politics, we too often pick fights among ourselves and make candidates undergo purity tests and thus deprive ourselves of humans of great character to help us lead the way towards better outcomes for the largest number of people.
We don’t need ideologically pure persons who walk on water to run for office. We need people of good character who try to do their very best every day. People who can listen, people for whom representing constituents to the best of their abilities is an honour. People who aren’t interested in being proven right, but want to do right instead.
This brings me to Graham Platner. I wrote a few weeks ago about his candidacy for the Senate seat in Maine and said some harsh things about how we need assholes to defeat the patently unfit gang that’s currently running the show.
Now, there are limits. Credible allegations of sexual assault and/or rape, thoroughly fact-checked by experienced journalists, are beyond those limits. If true, they are disqualifying. And, without saying anything that would deprive Platner of his right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise, the allegations are serious enough to end his campaign so he can focus on clearing his name (he says the allegations are false). The place to do that isn’t on the campaign trail.
In announcing he was going to step aside, Platner delivered a long message on the state of politics and I want to highlight one part of that. He makes a critically important point and to discuss it, I am going to ask my reader to set the latest allegations aside for a few minutes because that point is true regardless of whether he’s guilty or not.
The 11-minute video is long on whining and short on substance, but the little bit of substance it contains is worth thinking about.
“We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.” — Graham Platner
Now, Platner was chosen by Maine Democrats by a substantial margin in the June 9 primary, after driving the establishment candidate (that’d be two-term Governor Janet Mills) out of the race. Platner also had the backing of political heavyweights like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer who stood by him all the way until this week. His story proves that people who come from outside the political mainstream can succeed. But his point remains that there is a lot of pressure applied to make sure outsiders don’t generally do well against polished, established or anointed candidates.
To repeat: if the allegations are true, Graham Platner deserves punishment. But even if he is guilty, he can also be right about the fact that a candidacy like his doesn’t work for the interests that have taken hold of mainstream political parties. Donors tend to prefer candidates who can be counted on to behave in predictable ways.
We will not get out of the mess we’re in unless and until we loosen the grip a small clique of well-connected folks have on mainstream parties and open the door to good people who want to bring their experiences and slightly unpolished manners and contribute to public life. Democracy is supposed to represent everybody; it was never meant to be run exclusively by Ivy League grads. We really need to make space for normal people, otherwise we’re inviting pitchforks.