cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38323356
Oct. 31, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET Michelle Goldberg
Andy O’Brien, a former Democratic state legislator and newspaper editor, told me that outsiders didn’t fully understand how radicalizing the second Trump presidency has been for ordinary Democrats. Even senior citizens, he said, were becoming “fire-breathing leftists. They’re just pissed off.”
These voters understood that Platner had made mistakes, but they saw him as a fighter. “Five years ago, he would have been dead in the water, I think,” said O’Brien, who now works with the labor movement. “But this is such an unprecedented time. I think a lot of people really believe that we need somebody who can effectively fight against fascism.”
Maine is an overwhelmingly white state, but it’s not just white guys who feel this way. “We’re sticking by him,” said Safiya Khalid, a Somali American activist and former member of the Lewiston City Council.
Most of what I’m saying is that I’ve seen some very superficial/ knee-jerk level responses, but that specifically concerning the reddit comments (for example, Platners question in an Ask Reddit about black people and tipping), I would expect Lemmy/ Lemmings to have a more nuanced understanding of how these kinds of spaces operate. The tipping question in particular is a good example.
And when I see that lack of nuance (as is being demonstrated in this very thread), I have to interpret it as something other than an honest criticism of the content of the critique, because I don’t accept that lemmings individually aren’t capable of understanding that nuance. And so I therefor have to assume its in bad faith, because, here you and I (and others) are, on lemmy. You have to be pretty deep into the internet and these kinds of spaces to end up here.
Even in that example, he literally said he did not know why. He saw a thing that happened, he recognized a trend, and he thought he could ask about it. It wasn’t a racially motivated ATTACK, and he wasn’t denigrating black people.
He explained after he asked on Reddit, he had a black bartender explain to him the history of their feelings about it. His quote from the Pod Save America interview:
Link
And as you show here, these space on Reddit, are specifically for asking these kinds of question in a shame-free environment. Its the entire point.
Platner, like most of America, was born into a racist nation where racism is structurally built into society and implicit biases are baked into our psyche from the first moments we’re imprinted upon as children. And if you can get a question, like the one Platner had, answered in a manner like his bartender friend answered: its literally is a solution to racism. Being able to ask question about a racist assumption, then to develop an understanding of why you had the question in the first place, Its literally how you change people from being racist to being anti-racist. And it works: Platner is an example of that.
And I should expect lemmings to have a better understanding of the roles spaces, like the one Platner asked the question in, have a role in changing peoples minds. In-fact, I refuse to accept that a typical lemming doesn’t actually understand this, and so I reject their critique and choose to believe they are operating in bad faith.