The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: The Rise and Fall of Socialist Graham Platner

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

The Democrats’ strategy of propping up socialist candidates and disguising them as the average middle class has finally caught up to them with Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.   The allegations towards Platner are damning and have come from both sides of the political aisle. Today, the news broke that Platner officially dropped out of the Maine Senate race.   Where do Democrats go from here? And do they have enough time to recover? Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://www.JoinADF.com/HANSON or text HANSON to 83848 to sign ADF’s petition to protect female sports. Add your name to the declaration and side with truth and fairness! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision, to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca.

Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility, Canadian new vehicle total registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. For the last month or so, we've heard nothing but Graham Platner, but Graham Platner, Graham Platner. He's very controversial, as we all remember. We learned that he had smeared and slandered fellow veterans.

He was on social media sites that usually were used by molesters. He had the Totenkov Death Heads tattoo. But a new development happened, this week when another person came forward and said that not just that she had her arm twisted and had been physically assaulted, but she said she was raped, and then everything started to change. All of these terrible things I just reviewed about Graham Platner were known to the left-wing voters of Maine. But even they were not bothered with all the things I reviewed and decided.

So what happened? Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. For the last month or so, we've heard nothing but Graham Platner, but Graham Platner, Graham Platner. He is a quote-unquote, oyster man from Maine that was a four-tour combat veteran who, the Democratic Party, Mr. Katz, a very obscure 27-year-old activist, recruited for the Democratic Party to run against Susan Collins for the senior Senator Slot in Maine. And he's very controversial, as we all remember. After he declared his candidacy, we learned that he had smeared and slandered fellow veterans. He was on social media sites that usually were used by pedophiles.

fields and molesters. He had been married recently, yet he was sexting with two or three other women. One of his former girlfriend said he'd use violence to twist her arm. I could go on. He had the Totenkov Deathheads tattoo and Nazi symbol of the Third Panzer Division in the Einstein Group in the Death Camps of Germany. But a new development happened this week when another person came forward and said that not just that she had her arm twisted and had been physically assaulted, but she said she was raped. And then everything started to change. And what caused this change? Because remember one thing, all of these terrible things I just reviewed about Graham Platner were known to the left-wing voters of Maine. And they factored that in in the primary vote.

And so much was their zeal for a socialist candidate, and he is a socialist candidate. And he is a socialist, whether he declares himself that or not, or their hatred of Donald Trump or their desire to get a Senate seat so they can maybe impeach and convict Donald Trump? I don't know, but they were fine with that. But two recent developments occurred where the Democratic Party said, you may be fine and you may have given him 70 percent of the primary vote, but we're going to stop this. But even they were not bothered with all the things I reviewed and decided. So what happened? Number one, the latest person is a Democrat, a liberal Democrat. They can't smear her as they did the prior one who was a conservative as acting out of political motivations. So that was a change. She got more credibility. She was known for a long time. They had banked her and thought that she might be useful to end his candidacy if more things came out. So when she went to Politico, and gave her story, a left-wing organization and media outlet,

the Democratic Party acted because of the second factor that changed everything. He had been seven or eight points ahead in the polls, and then he started to descend with these revelations, and now he was either even or descending, and they were afraid he was going to lose that seat. So suddenly they got religion, so to speak, and they demanded that he get off. And he gave a taped 11-minute confessional, not about that he was culpable, but that he was going to suspend, suspend his campaign.

Notice what I said. I didn't say end, quit. He didn't say that. He's got about five days from the time I'm talking to formally get his name off the ballot, according to election law in Maine. If he doesn't, it stays on the ballot, even if the Democrats nominate another candidate, and it won't matter. He's still on the ballot. And I think that's why he said he was going to suspend. In other words, he's telling the Democratic apparatus, you took me off, and I'm not going to go so easily. I'm going to put my finger in the wind in the next four or five days, six days, and see how people feel. They may feel I'm another Al Franken, where they meet too. Al Franken because of that grotesque picture where he put his hand on the breast of a sleeping woman,

and then they found out that they were going to lose that seat, and they regretted it. So, Ram Platner is basically saying, the people want me, and I think the socialist movement of your party wants me, and you overshot, and I'm not going to quit yet until I can feel where the momentum and the power is in the next few days. There's another factor to remember. He is a vindictive person. He suffers 100% disability. He's on complete federal disability.

I think that'll be the first senator in U.S. Senate history to go to the White House with 100% disability from post-traumatic stress syndrome. In other words, he is deemed unstable enough to warrant a full medical pension. He's got a mean streak in him, and I don't think he's going to be going out like the usual Democratic backroom coups operate. Remember, Joe Biden, when they thought in 2020 that Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders were going to have too far a left socialist brand. One of them might be the candidates. They said, out, out, out. Good old Joe Biden from Scrant he's going to be our waxen effigy. He has a moderate facade. And they basically select them, even though he had lost the first two primary caucuses and votes.

And then, of course, they did the same thing to get rid of. You'd live by the coup, you'd die by the coup. So Joe Biden had a bad debate. His dementia was no longer possible to be disguised. They thought they were going to lose. He was behind in the polls. They got rid of him in a backroom coup. They did it with Eric Swalwell.

He was starting to ascend in the primary race for the gubernatorial, Democratic nomination. They decided that there was a lot of stuff in his background that might hurt them. He might, in a general election, lose to Steve Hilton. So they got rid of him. And that's what they do. But this is a different case. He's not predictable. He's not one of them. And so he does have cards to play. He can say, I'm going to keep my name on the ballot, no matter what, even if I suspend my campaign. And then you try to get a right-in candidate and see how that works for you. I will split the Democratic. vote, and this will boomerang on you. So he has a lot of cards to play. But finally, what is the platinum problem? How did a NEPO baby who was quite affluent? His father is a well-known main lawyer. His mother owns a restaurant. His father helped him and gave him property or a friend through a friend for his oyster farm to perform. He only makes $5,000 a year. His only client is his mother's upscale restaurant.

He is not a working class person. But Mr. Katz and all these young 20-something operatives know that this agenda, this socialist agenda that they love, open borders, no difference between citizenship and residency, green New Deal. Anti-Israel, elements of anti-Semitism, D-I, D-I-D-E-I, confiscate property, tax, unrealized profits, and net worth. I could go on.

Nobody wants it. So they have to disguise it like they did in 2020 with Joe Biden. But the problem is they don't have any working-class white people that look authentic. So they do silly things. Pete Buttigick grows a beard. wears a caterpillar hat, wears a puff working vest, and suddenly he's supposed to be a working class until he opens his mouth, and he comes off as a sanctimonious, self-righteous elite.

Or they're looking around for James Tala Rico as sort of the working class Christian or the Christian Everyman who's down to earth, and we find out he's got all sorts of bizarre ideas about transgenderism and gay this and sexuality and the Bible and his far-left. Kook. And now we see Graham Platner. He looked authentic. He was putting out videos with his oyster garb on. They thought, well, this is a working man, a vet. We're going to get the middle class. We can still full them and get our socialist agenda. And then he turned out to be a complete nut. What would be the easiest thing to do? The easiest thing to do, we'd go back

and call it Bill Clinton, not the latest Bill Clinton, but the earlier Bill Clinton, and say, how did you win in 92 and 96? And he would tell them, that he moderated on the issues, and he really appealed as an authentic person from the working class. And if they did that, they wouldn't have to disguise an unacceptable socialist agenda through pseudo working class people like Graham Platner. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for The Daily Signal. Hey folks, you know that males have inherent athletic advantages over females, and no one should be punished for recognizing that truth.

And guess what? The U.S. Supreme Court knows it too. Just days ago, the court ruled that under both the U.S. Constitution and under federal law, states are free to protect female athletes. That means girls can compete on a level playing field in 27 states. Now we must fight to ensure the remaining 23 states stand up for safety and fairness too. That's really important for girls like Kaylee Keeler, a high school wrestler in Washington State who was sexually assaulted by a male during the middle of a competition. No female should have to experience what she did.

Sign Alliance Defending Freedom's petition to protect female sports now. Visit join ADF.com slash hand. or text Hanson, H-A-N-S-O-N-2-8-3-848, to add your name to their declaration and side with truth and fairness. That's join ADF.com slash Hansen or text Hansen to 838848. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansson.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.