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The Platner fiasco has unleashed something of a brawl in the Democratic Party over how the sexting candidate with a Nazi tattoo came to be their rival to Susan Collins, now in her 5th term as Republican senator from Maine. Bernie Sanders thought his socialists could pass off blue-collar impersonator Graham Platner – a product of the elite Hotchkiss prep school – as a hard-working “oysterman.”

Sanders had been waving off concerns about the guy. Then suddenly, he called on Platner to leave the campaign.

Two problems with Bernie’s new directive: One, Sanders is why Democrats got saddled with Platner to begin with. Two, the new revelations come on top of previous revelations about his behavior.

Sanders evidently thought he could ignore all this until more startling charges came to light. The dam holding back Democratic demands to replace Platner finally gave way. If Sanders didn’t jump in and pretend to have problems with the candidate he pushed onto the party, he wouldn’t be in a strong position to choose his own left-fringe replacement with a colorful story.

The road to socialist victories, Sanders knows, runs through infiltrating the Democratic Party, of which he’s not a member. His objective is not to help Democrats take over Congress but for his socialists to take over the Democratic Party.

Sanders, the “Independent ” senator from Vermont, is not a Mainer. He’s a New Yorker, spending large amounts of time back home in hardcore Democratic districts trying – and succeeding – to get his followers to knock off liberal Democrat incumbents in primaries.

Thing is, the Democratic Socialists of America are heavily represented by college-educated voters who don’t have to worry about losing their health coverage. They don’t like the rents they have to pay to live in the neighborhoods they’re busy gentrifying. They think socialists can fix that.

Now listen to a Platner defender back in Maine. Joanie Monteith told AP, “I’m heartbroken for him and his wife.” Rest assured that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, is well practiced in the art of handling humiliation, with the world knowing her husband sent raunchy texts to assorted women before the couple reached their second anniversary.

If finding plausible Democrats to represent the party requires a Democratic rumble, let’s have it. So far, few prominent Democrats have spoken forcefully about the far-left’s boutique nominees. The exception is Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman. He let loose, calling Platner a “predator” and “Bona fide dirtbag.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, more gentle in his rebuke, joins Fetterman as a Democrat who won office in a state that’s been turning Republican. Democrats shouldn’t need a lot of magic to get one of their own elected in Blue New England, and in a year favoring their party.

Sanders, age 84, might consider retirement. But another leftist string-puller at the other end of the age spectrum, 27-year-old campaign adviser Morris Katz, should also look for another line of work. Katz won some fame as the mind behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s internet storytelling campaign.

Democrats need to replace the internet-savvy fringe operatives with internet-savvy mainstream operatives of their own.