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Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Says 'Nobody Works Hard Enough to Justify $1 Billion'
"I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine where people work as hard we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code."
Nov 15, 2025
Echoing recent viral comments by music superstar Billie Eilish, Maine Democratic candidate for US Senate Graham Planter is also arguing that the existence of billionaires cannot be justified in a world where working-class people with multiple jobs still cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
In video clip posted Friday of a campaign event in the northern town of Caribou from last month, Platner rails against the "structures" of an economy in which billionaires with vast personal fortunes use their wealth to bend government—including the tax code—to conform to their interests while working people are left increasingly locked out of controlling their own destinies, both materially and politically.
"Nobody works hard enough to justify $1 billion," the military veteran and oyster farmer told potential voters at the event. "Not in a world where I know people that have three jobs and can't even afford their rent."
With audience members nodding their heads in agreement, Platner continued by saying, "I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine, where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code. That is what allows that money to get accrued."
No one works hard enough to justify being a billionaire. pic.twitter.com/Ezvf5fPLfv
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 14, 2025
The systemic reasons that create vast inequality, Platner continued, are also why he believes that the process of the super wealthy becoming richer and richer at the expense of working people can be reversed.
"The world that we live in today," he explained, "is not organic. It is not natural. The political and economic world we have did not happen because it had to. It happened because politicians in Washington and the billionaires who write the policies that they pushed made this happen. They changed the laws, and they made it legal to accrue as much wealth and power as they have now."
The solution? "We need to make it illegal again to do that," says Platner.
The comments questioning the justification for billionaires to even exist by Platner—though made in early October—echo more recent comments that went viral when spoken by Billie Eilish, a popular musician, who told a roomful of Wall Street movers and shakers in early November that they should do a better job reflecting on their outrageous wealth.
"Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me," Eilish said during an award event in New York City. "If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties."
"If you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?"
— Billie Eilish clocking billionaires.pic.twitter.com/BVpRExp1GQ
— Billie Eilish Spotify (@BillieSpotify_) October 30, 2025
While those remarks took a long spin around the internet, Eilish on Friday doubled down on uncharitable billionaires by colorfully calling Elon Musk, who could end up being the world's first trillionaire, a "fucking pathetic pussy bitch coward" for not donating more of his vast fortune, among the largest in the world, to humanitarian relief efforts.
This week, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of economists and policy experts called for the creation of a new international body to address the global crisis of inequality.
Like Platner, the group behind the call—including economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jayati Ghosh—emphasized the inequality-as-a-policy-choice framework. Piketty, who has called for the mass taxation of dynastic wealth as a key part of the solution to runaway inequality, said “we are at a dangerous moment in human history” with “the very essence of democracy” under threat if something is not done.
On the campaign trail in Maine, Platner has repeatedly suggested that only organized people can defeat the power of the oligarchs, which he has named as the chief enemy of working people in his state and beyond. The working class, he said at a separate rally, "have an immense amount of power, but we only have it if we're organized."
No one from above is coming to save us. It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve. pic.twitter.com/Xm3ZIhfCJI
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 11, 2025
"No one from above is coming to save us," Platner said. "It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve."
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Wilson in Seattle and Mamdani in New York Back Starbucks Workers Strike
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either."
Nov 15, 2025
The mayors-elect in both Seattle and New York City are backing the nationwide strike by Starbucks baristas launched this week, calling on the people of their respective cities to honor the consumer boycott of the coffee giant running parallel to the strike so that workers can win their fight for better working conditions.
“Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee,” Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will take control of the New York City's mayor office on January 1, declared in a social media post to his more than 1 million followers.
In Seattle, mayor-elect Katie Wilson, who on Thursday was declared the winner of the race in Seattle, where Starbucks was founded and where its corporate headquarters remains, joined the picket line with striking workers in her city on the very same day to show them her support.
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” Wilson told the crowd.
She also delivered a message directly to the corporate leadership of Starbucks. "This is your hometown and mine," she said. "Seattle's making some changes right now, and I urge you to do the right thing. Because in Seattle, when workers' rights are under attack, what do we do?" To which the crowd responded in a chant-style response: "Stand up! Fight back!"
Socialist Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson's first move after winning the election was to boycott Starbucks, a hometown company. pic.twitter.com/zPoNULxfuk
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 14, 2025
In his post, Mamdani said, "Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract," as he called for people everywhere to honor the picket line by not buying from the company.
At a rally with New York City workers outside a Starbucks location on Thursday, Mamdani referenced the massive disparity between profits and executive pay at the company compared to what the average barista makes.
Zohran Mamdani says that New York City stands with Starbucks employees!He points out their CEO made 96 billion last year. That’s 6,666 times the median Starbucks worker salary. Boycott Starbucks. Support the workers. Demand they receive a living wage.
[image or embed]
— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 10:45 PM
The striking workers, said Mamdani, "are asking for a salary they can actually live off of. They are asking for hours they can actually build their life around. They are asking for the violations of labor law to finally be resolved. And they deserve a city that has their back and I am here to say that is what New York City will be."
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'Worst of the Worst'? DOJ Figures Show 97.4% of 614 Detained Immigrants in Chicago Had No Criminal Record
Of 614 people on list who may have been unlawfully arrested and detained by federal officials, only 16 had a criminal record of any kind.
Nov 15, 2025
President Donald Trump and his administration have claimed repeatedly that the immigration raids that have terrorized communities nationwide this year are focused on getting the "worst of the worst" off the streets and out of the country, but new detention data filed by the Department of Justice on Friday shows that only a tiny fraction of the more than 600 people who remain in detention in the Chicago area from raids over recent months have any criminal record, bolstering anecdotal evidence that many of those targeted for by ICE and federal border agents are hard-working, law-abiding members of society.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
The Trump administration on Friday released the names of 614 people whose Chicago-area immigration arrests may have violated a 2022 consent decree, and only 16 of them have criminal histories that present a “high public safety risk.”
The list was produced as part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging immigration agents have repeatedly violated the terms of the in-court settlement, mostly during “Operation Midway Blitz,” that puts a high bar on making so-called warrantless arrests without a prior warrant or probable cause.
The newspaper reports that of the 16 people arrested with criminal histories—representing just 2.6% of the total listed in the filing— "five involved domestic battery, two were related to drunken driving, and one allegedly had an unidentified criminal history in another country." None had criminal backgrounds that included worst-of-the-worst offenses like rape or murder.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the government to provide more information about the more than 600 people being held in detention and suggested he would order their release if compelling public-safety reasons were not presented. While ordering the immediate release of 13 people he deemed were arrested unlawfully, Cummings gave the government until Friday to release the additional information on those being held.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the list of 614 detainees comes from a longer list of roughly 1,800 individuals arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and October 7, of which "only about 750 of them remain in the country." Most of the others were deported, and their criminal histories were not presented in Friday's disclosure.
The consent decree at issue, known as the Castañon-Nava settlement agreement, restricts the ability of ICE agents or others working with them to make warrantless arrests in Illinois.
“Communities throughout the Chicago area have been traumatized by ICE and other federal agents’ chaotic and violent actions in our neighborhoods in recent months, and potentially hundreds of families already have been permanently separated as a result of unlawful arrests and rapid deportations without due process," said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation for the National Immigration Justice Center (NIJC), who is backing the legal case against the unlawful arrests and detentions in Chicago, after the order issued by Cummings on Wednesday.
"NIJC and our partners will continue to demand justice for our communities and accountability for the lawless administration we all are facing.”
During Wednesday's hearing, the judge suggested many of those who remain in detention likely have no history of criminal conduct and were targeted by federal agents simply for fitting a specific profile. As the Sun-Times reports:
Cummings said that 54 of those people were arrested at work, including 20 landscapers and four ride-share or taxi drivers. Twenty were arrested commuting to or from work, he added, and nine were arrested at a Home Depot or Menards, “presumably either seeking work or to pick up supplies.”
Seven were also arrested at an “immigration-related hearing,” Cummings said, while 11 were arrested in public places like a park, gas station or even a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru.
“It seems highly likely to me that at least some of those individuals are among the 615 detainees who are not subject to mandatory detention,” Cummings said. He also found them unlikely to be members of gangs, “assorted other ne’er-do-wells” or the “worst of the worst.”
Community members living in Chicago and its outlying suburbs, including Broadview, have expressed anger at Trump's ICE operations in the region, which have seen school teachers, childcare providers, day laborers, and other neighbors targeted and arrested.
On Friday, 21 people were arrested outside the immigration detention center in Broadview following a morning demonstration outside the facility.
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