Defending Democracy by Making America Radical Again​: On the Senate Trail With Graham Platner

I just made my first trip to Maine. The flights were exhausting: Green Bay to Detroit to LaGuardia to Bangor on Monday, with weather delays and cancellations along the way. Landed in Bangor at midnight on the way out... and forced to stay overnight in Detroit on the return leg. And yet, when I actually landed back home in Wisconsin on Saturday morning, I didn’t feel tired in the least. In fact, I actually felt refreshed and charged up—though I may have been simply running on adrenaline and the excitement of having joined the progressive-populist Democrat Graham Platner on the campaign trail in his quest to become his party’s nominee for the US Senate to challenge Sen. Susan Collins, the right-wing Republican incumbent.

In contrast to all too many Democratic candidates, Graham Platner gets it. Fed up with a party establishment that continues to turn its back on its own FDR tradition and the social-democratic yearnings of working people, he has come to recognize and respond to the American democratic imperative that the populist-progressive journalist and activist Henry Demarest Lloyd spoke of 130 years ago: “The price of liberty is something more than eternal vigilance. We can save the rights we have inherited from our fathers only by winning new ones to bequeath our children.”

Not at all a career politician, Platner is a 41-year-old Marine and Army combat veteran. He left the military after tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan, having finally had enough of witnessing the unrelenting waste of human life and resources that those wars entailed. But as much as he was fed up with forever wars, he did not return home either cynical about or fed up with America. He remained fundamentally a patriot—a democratic patriot.

Back in his hometown of Sullivan, Maine, Graham took up an offer to partner in an oyster farming business and before long became actively involved in progressive community organizing. But it was not enough. An avid reader of history—and knowing full well that the way things were is not the way they have always been or need to be today—he decided, with the support of his wife Amy and a cohort of friends, to pursue the Democratic nomination.

Inspired by Thomas Paine in 1776, the American colonists turned their rebellion into a revolutionary war not just for independence, but also for the making of a democratic republic.

I could not help but take note of his candidacy this past autumn—especially when I saw via social media sites that he was not only quoting my boy Thomas Paine in his speeches—“We have it in our to power to the begin the world over again...” (Common Sense) and “These are the times that try men’s souls...” (The Crisis)—and including my book, Thomas Paine and the Promise of America in his campaign book club. He was also lamenting the fact that Congress had never acted on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1944 call for an Economic Bill of Rights for all Americans. Long story short: I reached out to his campaign manager Ben Chin, who quickly set up a face-to-face zoom meeting for us. And the ensuing conversation made it clear to me that Platner would pass any essay exam this professor of democracy and justice might set. But good grades aside, what really struck me was Graham’s professed determination to take hold of the best of our progressive and radical history and to rhetorically engage and encourage his fellow Mainers to join him in renewing the fight to make the revolutionary promise of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness all the more real for all the more of them.

If you know anything about my work—and Graham made it very clear that he did—you’ll appreciate why I was not only thrilled to run into him on social media, but also eager to help boost his campaign. We stayed in daily touch. Then, just over two weeks ago, Platner reached out to invite me to Maine for the campaign's launch of its Defend Democracy Agenda on March 10. He said would be honored to have me present for the launch, but hell, I have to admit I felt honored he wanted me there.

Democratic US Senate Candidate Graham Platner talks to a local Indivisible group in Maine on March 10, 2026. (Photo: Daniel Pelt)

Flying to Maine, I was still in the dark as to what my actual role would be. But when I finally arrived at Graham and Amy’s house—coming in at 1am after my long flight—I found out that they wanted me to actually introduce the proceedings the next day at the rally in Machias by placing the Agenda in historical perspective. I loved the prospect.

Driving that morning to Machias, the seat of Washington County in Downeast Maine, Graham and Ben told me of the Battle of Machias in 1775—the first naval battle of what would become the American Revolution—in which local residents rallied to defend their town against British ships seeking to secure supplies, by sailing out to engage them. Along the way, we stopped to meet a friendly group of Indivisible Mainers who gathered every Tuesday on a bridge with signs protesting the political and economic royalists of today who are tearing down American democracy. That definitely revved me up a bit and after our visit with local activists, Graham and Ben enthusiastically licensed me to speak radically at the rally in Machias.

Standing outside the Revolutionary-era Burnham Tavern in Machias, I told the crowd of about 100 or so people that I had come to Maine to express my support for Graham’s campaign and to stand in solidarity with them. I then turned to American history. I said straightforwardly that we have endured 50 years of class war from above by corporate elites, conservative Republicans, and neoliberal Democrats, all of which have worked against the democratic achievements of the Long Age of Roosevelt from the 1930s to the 1960s. This is a class war that has stripped workers, women, and people of color of their hard-won rights. It's a class war that has produced gross inequalities and propelled 50 years of creeping authoritarianism that is now running roughshod over us.

I explained that although history does not repeat itself, we have been here before. Not for the first time do we face a mortal crisis in which reactionary forces threaten to destroy American democratic life and bury the nation’s revolutionary promise. We did so in the 1770s, the 1860s, and the 1930s and 1940s. And yet, in each of those crises, generations of Americans—for all of their faults and failings, and sins of omission and commission—found it in themselves to save the nation and its promise by making America radically freer, more equal, and more democratic than ever before.

Don’t vote for the candidate who promises to be your champion and fight for you. Vote for the candidate who inspires the fight in you.

Inspired by Thomas Paine in 1776, the American colonists turned their rebellion into a revolutionary war not just for independence, but also for the making of a democratic republic. Inspired by Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, Americans of that era saved the Union not only by fighting the Civil War, but also by bringing the scourge of slavery to an end. And inspired by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s, it was the people who beat back both the Great Depression and fascism, not merely by taking up the labors and struggles of the New Deal and the War Effort, but also by empowering working people and radically transforming the nation for the better.

Finally, in introducing Graham, I declared how thrilled I was to have finally discovered a Democratic candidate who understood that to “Defend American Democracy” required joining together and once again fighting to make America radically freer, more equal, and more democratic. (I sadly realized afterwards that I forgot to finish with these words of advice: Don’t vote for the candidate who promises to fight for you – vote for the candidate who inspires the fight in you!)

Stepping forward to uplifting cheers and applause, Graham vigorously reaffirmed the narrative I offered and proceeded to present a set of bold, clear, critical policy proposals to progressively redeem, renew, and and realize America’s promise: ending lifetime Supreme Court appointments; reasserting Congress’s authority over the courts and the executive (the question of war powers!); banning partisan gerrymandering; getting money out of politics; protecting the constitutional right to privacy; strengthening workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively; passing the Equal Rights Amendment; and updating and advancing the economic freedoms which FDR called a Second Bill of Rights via a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.

These rights would include the right to a useful job that pays a living wage, the right to a decent home, the right to quality medical care and the opportunity to enjoy good health and recreation, the right to economic security in old age, sickness, unemployment, or disability; the right to a good education; and the right of farmers and small business owners to fair competition free from monopoly power.

The author speaking at the event outside the Burnham Tavern Museum in Machias, Maine on March 10, 2026. (Photo: Daniel Pelt)

Graham was impressive. He really does know how to take hold of our history without ever sounding pedantic. And he knows politics and policy. He even confesses when he needs to "look into that”—which is to say, he never fudges his answers.

Following a walking tour of Machias with stops in the local shoppes, we went to the renowned Helen’s Restaurant, where Graham spoke to a full house of enthusiasts, and I ate the best blueberry pie of my life. That evening, Graham addressed a filled-to-the-steeple crowd of local citizens—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—at the Congregational Church and he stayed on for quite a while to answer questions friendly and challenging.

On the next day, he and I recorded a two-hour conversation at the Bon Vent Cidery in Hancock. The exchange flowed back and forth between past and present and allowed us to not only go deeper into the remarks we made in Machias, but also refine our thinking. We talked about Paine, Lincoln, FDR, the Democratic Party, politics, movement building, populism, progressivism, and social democracy. That night we had dinner with a few friends of Graham’s at his mom’s home. As it was my first time in Maine, I could not help but ask them to tell me the best adjectives to define Mainers and life in Maine. It was so much fun I can’t remember any of the answers.

The following day I was supposed to fly back to Wisconsin, but my flight was cancelled due to thick fog. So, I tagged along to Graham’s campaign meetings for the day. That night, I took Graham out to dinner to thank him for having me out, during which he felt the need to apologize for all the interruptions by other diners (not all of whom were locals), but I thought it fascinating to watch it unfold. He is leading in both the primary and the general-election polls (vs Governor Janet Mills and Senator Susan Collins, respectively), but everyone is well aware of the fact that he is not the favorite of party leaders in Augusta and Washington—and they expect the billionaire money of the ruling class to soon start pouring into the state. Still, union endorsements are strong; both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have embraced his candidacy; and Graham is starting to pick up endorsements from other progressive lawmakers and movement leaders.

I expect to go back to Maine when I can—hopefully, for a couple of victory parties. Meanwhile, my advice to Mainers is what I forgot to say at Machias: Don’t vote for the candidate who promises to be your champion and fight for you. Vote for the candidate who inspires the fight in you. And from what I saw on my visit, that candidate is Graham Platner.