Editors at National Review Online ponder the Democratic Party’s current trends.
The sudden decision by Governor Janet Mills to drop out of Maine’s Senate primary and effectively yield the Democratic nomination to radical upstart Graham Platner shows the Democrats could be experiencing a grassroots revolt of the sort that Republicans experienced in the Tea Party era.
An activist, Marine veteran, and oyster farmer, Platner was barely known when he launched his campaign last August, but he quickly gained momentum and soon enough an advantage over Mills.
He garnered national attention when it was revealed that he had a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest. It wasn’t just any symbol — it was a skull-and-crossbones image that was adopted by the branch of the Nazi SS that served as concentration camp guards. In the years since the war, it has been used by various neo-Nazi groups. …
… Democrats, who spent the Tea Party era claiming that opposition to national health care and appeals to our founding constitutional principles were coded racism, have made excuses for Platner. Former Obama speechwriter and left-wing podcaster Jon Favreau claimed Platner was “a good, decent man who’s struggled and grown and is always trying to do better.” Senator Chris Van Hollen blamed Platner’s rancid posts on PTSD from his military service, saying that “he went through a really rough period.” Yes, somehow, there are millions of military veterans who have served our country honorably without feeling compelled to stamp a symbol of Adolf Hitler’s Schutzstaffel on their bodies.
Platner, who is now expected to go up in the general against centrist Republican Senator Susan Collins, may be a sign of things to come. Throughout the country, far-left candidates have been running in Democratic primaries as change agents — a message that invariably comes with hostility toward Jews and Israel.
