“If you believe in a better world, you need to get right with the fact that you may never see it.” At this point, he sniffles. “And now I’m going to cry a little. I can do that because I’ve had a lot of therapy.”
Replies
"The question—how will he talk to Trump voters?—is one that only makes sense if you’ve never lived near many. It’s a question off an SAT proctored by political consultants: a test you have to pass to be taken seriously by people who think “real America” is a riddle to solve."
aug 29, 2025, 12:53 pm • 4 1 • view
Chuck Schumer wants 77-yr-old Janet Mills to run. Platner: “I’ve not gotten a single phone call from anybody in the Democratic Party outside of the state of Maine. Nobody’s followed up with me from D.C. Nobody’s reached out. Nothing,” he says. “Which I take as a compliment.”
aug 29, 2025, 12:58 pm • 3 0 • view
"To him, persuasion is a dead end if the people you’re trying to sway have already torched the rulebook. Power, as he sees it, is the ability to ignore the referee and keep scoring. His goal isn’t to negotiate—it’s to demonstrate what a candidate backed by a real movement can do."
aug 29, 2025, 1:01 pm • 2 0 • view
“It’s not about getting me elected. It’s not about getting anybody elected in many ways. It’s about using all of this as a mechanism of building working class power.”
aug 29, 2025, 1:01 pm • 3 0 • view
"Precarity can spark the political division that Star Trek-style post-scarcity might alleviate, but Platner thinks its most pervasive damage to our society is more subtle: We just don’t have time for each other. This is not just a political crisis. It’s an existential one."
aug 29, 2025, 1:03 pm • 1 0 • view
(precarity=instability, as in precarious)
aug 29, 2025, 1:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Almost in unison, they say: “People aren’t ready.” “Take it from an infantryman.” Platner adds, “You’re never ready. People think they are, but they’re not.”
aug 29, 2025, 1:04 pm • 2 0 • view
“Write this down,” he says. “No matter which way it goes—taking the Senate or the fall of democracy—whatever the eventuality, the work remains the same.” “You have to build things for people to access. You have to build the apparatus for change, even if no one else shows up."
aug 29, 2025, 1:05 pm • 4 0 • view