The Politics of the Downwardly Mobile Professional Class

Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate in Maine’s Senate race, says he understands the plight of his state’s working class because he is working class. Platner, who works as an oyster farmer, talks regularly about getting by on $60,000 a year while living in a modest two-story house in the town where he grew up.

He has described suffering from PTSD after three tours with the Marines in Iraq and one with the Army in Afghanistan. When he’s not wearing a rugged flannel shirt on the campaign trail, he often exposes his tattooed arms. Critics point to other details: the biggest customer of his oyster farm appears to be his mother’s high-end restaurant; he bought his house with a $200,000 mortgage from his father, an Ivy League-educated lawyer, who recently helped pay for a trip for his son and daughter-in-law to Norway for fertility treatment.

Before he served in the Middle East, Platner did a brief tour at an elite Connecticut boarding school.

United States, Maine

graham platner, maine, senate race, oyster farmer, working class, ptsd, marines, afghanistan, ivy league, fertility treatment