Guy Who Wants To Beat Susan Collins Is Concerned. No, In A Good Way!

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/guy-who-wants-to-beat-susan-collins

We like Graham Platner, the hunky oyster farmer who hopes to win the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine and send Susan Collins into retirement so she can be very concerned on her own time, without still voting for fascism. Over the weekend, a video of Platner speaking at a town hall in northern Maine went viral, after he responded to a bigot who was spouting a very familiar lie about undocumented people somehow getting all the “free benefits,” which of course they aren’t, because virtually all federal social programs are limited to citizens, and in some cases to noncitizens here legally.

Please visit DoBW's post for the video: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220707284
(I like giving credit to earlier/better posts!)

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: What’s your plan for the illegals that are in this state that get free benefits?

CROWD: THEY DON’T!

The audience is, of course, completely correct.

Platner then replied, not so much to the bigot lady, but to the audience that accurately shouted her down, and that reply is why the clip went viral. And it wasn’t because of the part where he starts to say “If you listen to what she’s saying …” and a guy in the audience interrupts, loudly, with “No,” which I actually enjoyed and have replayed a few times for laughs.

Platner continued,

“If you listen to what she was saying, at her core, she’s angry about the exact same things you are. People are propagandized, people are misinformed, but people are not stupid, and we shouldn’t treat them as such. People are angry because they know they’re being screwed. They might get lied to, they might get taken in.

“If somebody robs your neighbor’s house, you don’t go over there and laugh at them afterward. They’ve been taken advantage of, and that’s what this is. People are being robbed. They’re being robbed of their critical thinking, they’re being robbed of their empathy.

“The answer to that is not shame, the answer to that is not anger, the answer is empathy and compassion.”

. . .