Graham Platner

I wound up on the planning board.

I wound up being the harbor master.

And in doing all that, I began to see like really the value of building trust and relationships and just organizing on the ground.

And I also began to realize that organizing is actually not that complicated.

It's just really hard.

And that there is no graduate version of it.

It's all one-on-one stuff.

Well, and because you have to put a lot of time, unpaid labor into it.

You have to believe.

And you have to go out into your community and you have to tell people what you believe.

which is also hard.

And it requires you to kind of open yourself up to a lot of people who, like people who I know, who you have to like kind of say like, this is what I believe.

And sometimes people are like, I'm not into that.

And you're like, oh, you're my neighbor.

That bums me out.

But you have to do it.

And we had a number of issues in Eastern Maine.

For instance, there was a school board race

an out-of-state PAC came in with a bunch of money and backed a very anti-trans candidate and somebody who'd been on the board for 13 years, who was well-respected in the community, who everybody liked, lost his seat.

And a month later, the school district pulled back protections for LGBTQ kids that had been there for six years.