Podbit · Up First from NPR
Nobody in Washington had heard of Graham Platner before August of last year. His primary win is evidence that the establishment's version of politics — raise corporate money, run negative ads, ignore policy — doesn't meet the moment.
Where this was said
At 34:58 · chapter starts 33:36
Fadel asks whether the national Democratic Party's attitude toward Platner has shifted now that he's the presumptive nominee and the Senate majority may hinge on his race. His answer is measured: there has been a slight thaw. After the Maine governor dropped out of the primary, Schumer — who had pushed her to run — called to congratulate him and agreed that beating Susan Collins must be the priority. More Democratic senators have been in touch. The Maine state party is on board. But Platner is clear: winning the primary doesn't change his diagnosis of the party's problems. In fact, his outsider victory — by a candidate nobody had heard of before August of the prior year — is itself evidence that the establishment's model of politics, with its corporate donors and consultant class, is failing to meet the moment. The data point, as he frames it, argues for doing politics differently.
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Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
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When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
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Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
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