Graham Platner

speaker

2,222 appearances 59 recordings 20 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 9 Jul

Graham Platner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 59 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 27.

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Up First from NPR · Can Graham Platner survive another controversy? | NPR’s Newsmakers · 1 Jun 2026 podcast

That's right.

Oh, because I am one.

I mean, I've been a registered Democrat my entire life, and I firmly believe that the Democratic Party should be the party of labor unions, should be the party of community organizations, should be the party of civil rights organizations, should be the party that advocates continuously

for systemic and structural change that is going to make this society uplift all of us, instead of creating structures that allow for the consolidation of wealth and power and keep that wealth and power in the hands of very few.

There are many people who talk about the Democratic Party as it once was, a party that used to represent labor unions, used to represent working people, and that one of the reasons why

it has lost that support is because it ceased being that.

And I believe it still can be.

Well, it is very funny to me that we've created this idea that you can only represent like the average American if you're rich.

Or if you've spent a bunch of time around wealth and power, which is funny because the average American has not spent a bunch of time around wealth and power.

The average American is not rich, does not come from some kind of specialized background that we have elevated.

I actually think there is a story that's really coalesced in the last 50 years, which is this kind of there's a gatekeeping about power.

It's this idea that power is only for people who have a specific last name or who come from wealth or who are already connected to it, people who have a specific kind of business background or have some kind of educational background.

They're the ones who are competent.

They're the ones who are worthy of wielding power.

And that's not true.

It's simply not true.

One, they've been the ones wielding power for the past 50 years.

Look where it got us.

I don't think anybody's looking around right now and being like, yeah, this is all working really great for most Americans.

We're all very happy with the outcomes that we have.

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