The “toxic” and “unsettling” behavior of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was revealed last week in The New York Times. Following months of speculation, the report details multiple women who accuse the local oysterman of leaving a trail of alleged violence and mental abuse. Platner, who has remained under public scrutiny for sporting a (supposedly unbeknownest) Nazi tattoo and lurid Reddit posts, has denied wrongdoing and accuses the allegations as being “politically motivated… I’m not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I’ve done since, and the movement we are building in Maine.”
Platner is hardly alone. Progressive candidates have now begun to offer up a substitute to mainstream Democratic party politics. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been hitting the trail with political streamer (and fervent communist) Hasan Piker. New York City Mayor Zohron Mamdani, a dedicated Democratic Socialist, vowed to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
The paleoconservative intellectual Paul Gottfried is regarded as the originator of the term “alternative-right” in a 2008 speech: “We are part of an attempt to put together an independent intellectual Right, one that exists without movement establishment funding and one that our opponents would be delighted not to have to deal with.”
It seems, now, that the progressive left in America is marshalling its own “alternative” movement.
And despite the revelations about Platner, he continues to lead the polls. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have not waned in their support. California Congressman Ro Khanna still stumped Platner saying “[t]he old guard needs to go and we don’t need recycled faces from the past.”
Online commenters have begun their defense. Claims of the Platner story being a “right-wing smear campaign,” while others call any “so-called liberal” who believes the allegations is a “f****ing traitor” to the progressive movement. Allegations of The New York Times giving “biased treatment of candidates skeptical of Israel” and calling the Platner accuser an out-and-out “professional liar” are common reframes.
The Atlantic has suggested that Democrats have a decision to make with Platner: “choose between character and power.” The New York Times podcast “The Opinions” flatly called him “a dirtbaggy kind of guy” before eulogizing how Democrats are struggling with a “stitched together brokerage party of lots of different groups.” The ever-contarian Michael Tracy threw water on the entire concept of a controversy in Unherd: “But it doesn’t matter anymore. American political conflict is now a rolling cacophony of everyone and their mother calling each other a pedophile.”
While the “alternative-right” has been stained with public toxicity since its inception, the rise of the “alt-Lib” has found a home with a large portion of the progressive base (and an increasing number of elected officials).
The “alt-Lib” has taken hold of the Democratic party. The violence of the BLM, ANTIFA rioters, Tesla bombers, Pro-Palestine activists are all excused in favor of their ideological project. The feasibility of the “alt-Lib” demands (universal healthcare, third-worldist convictions, Islamism sympathy) remain in the realm of the speculative. Their idealism is wrapped in an egalitarian moralism, one in which necessitates a lust for power, and has only attracted more and more young people to the far-left. “When we’re talking about 42% of Democrats under the age of 35 identifying as democratic socialists and a third of all Democrats—my goodness gracious,” CNN senior data analyst Harry Enten recently reported.
There are those, as Nietzsche writes, that are “in the habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of socialist sympathy is their favourite disguise.” But this is not merely the “Dirtbag-left” that seeks a mirror image of the populist right. The “alt-Lib” has a blunter edge, a vulgar tone, and a win by any means necessary attitude. An attitude that goes from theory to practice, a true praxis of revolution.
Social media algorithms provide the platform of passive indoctrination, while the “long march through the institutions” supply the philosophical frameworks in the universities. The “alt-lib” seeks to erase both left and right. It goes beyond party politics, revealing how mainstream Democratic policies have twisted itself into schizophrenic positions on issues that are on a collision course of implosion.
Will elected Democrats, party candidates, progressive commentators, and their loyal listeners continue to defend the indefensible? The “alt-Lib” position demands solidarity. Any resistance is met with hyperaggression and even-more-heightening reactions. If the “alt-Lib” seeks to become what it claims to be (a new, truer “Left-wing”) then expect an acceleration in tactics. The modern political environment has proved personal scandal is no longer a hindrance to office. As long as the candidate for office toes the line on the “alt-Lib” position, and remains tame and docile to ideological projects, then the rising base will stand by — ready and waiting.
