Echoing recent viral comments by music superstar Billie Eilish, Maine Democratic candidate for US Senate Graham Planter is also arguing that the existence of billionaires cannot be justified in a world where working-class people with multiple jobs still cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
In video clip posted Friday of a campaign event in the northern town of Caribou from last month, Platner rails against the “structures” of an economy in which billionaires with vast personal fortunes use their wealth to bend government—including the tax code—to conform to their interests while working people are left increasingly locked out of controlling their own destinies, both materially and politically.
“Nobody works hard enough to justify $1 billion,” the military veteran and oyster farmer told potential voters at the event. “Not in a world where I know people that have three jobs and can’t even afford their rent.”
With audience members nodding their heads in agreement, Platner continued by saying, “I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine, where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn’t. We all know it’s the structures. It’s the tax code. That is what allows that money to get accrued.”
No one works hard enough to justify being a billionaire. pic.twitter.com/Ezvf5fPLfv
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 14, 2025
The systemic reasons that create vast inequality, Platner continued, are also why he believes that the process of the super wealthy becoming richer and richer at the expense of working people can be reversed.
“The world that we live in today,” he explained, “is not organic. It is not natural. The political and economic world we have did not happen because it had to. It happened because politicians in Washington and the billionaires who write the policies that they pushed made this happen. They changed the laws, and they made it legal to accrue as much wealth and power as they have now.”
The solution? “We need to make it illegal again to do that,” says Platner.
The comments questioning the justification for billionaires to even exist by Platner—though made in early October—echo more recent comments that went viral when spoken by Billie Eilish, a popular musician, who told a roomful of Wall Street movers and shakers in early November that they should do a better job reflecting on their outrageous wealth.
“Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me,” Eilish said during an award event in New York City. “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”
“If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?”
— Billie Eilish clocking billionaires.pic.twitter.com/BVpRExp1GQ
— Billie Eilish Spotify (@BillieSpotify_) October 30, 2025
While those remarks took a long spin around the internet, Eilish on Friday doubled down on uncharitable billionaires by colorfully calling Elon Musk, who could end up being the world’s first trillionaire, a “fucking pathetic pussy bitch coward” for not donating more of his vast fortune, among the largest in the world, to humanitarian relief efforts.
This week, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of economists and policy experts called for the creation of a new international body to address the global crisis of inequality.
Like Platner, the group behind the call—including economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jayati Ghosh—emphasized the inequality-as-a-policy-choice framework. Piketty, who has called for the mass taxation of dynastic wealth as a key part of the solution to runaway inequality, said “we are at a dangerous moment in human history” with “the very essence of democracy” under threat if something is not done.
On the campaign trail in Maine, Platner has repeatedly suggested that only organized people can defeat the power of the oligarchs, which he has named as the chief enemy of working people in his state and beyond. The working class, he said at a separate rally, “have an immense amount of power, but we only have it if we’re organized.”
No one from above is coming to save us. It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve. pic.twitter.com/Xm3ZIhfCJI
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 11, 2025
“No one from above is coming to save us,” Platner said. “It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve.”
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
He got a stupid tattoo as a young Marine and all we got is a very blurry pic. News flash: Young Marines do stupid shit.
This is why we’ll never fucking win. No one will ever be pure enough for the left. He should have been planning his political career in his teens!
You mean the guy who in 2020 said he joined for “Adventure and [to] kill people”? Who was glad he got both?
I’m not American but I wouldn’t want an unrepentant killer as an elected official. Unapologetic for what he did to other people in the middle east, just the money wasted on killing them and destroying their lives.
If we cannot draw the line at Nazis I’m not sure we’re worth saving. There is zero chance he wasn’t aware of the origins of that tattoo. He’s defended marines with SS tattoos in the past as simply the “culture”. Its not about if he is or isn’t a Nazi, its about the obvious indifference to Nazi’s and their symbols. His populist rhetoric is masking his ties to the military industrial complex and his history of American chauvinism.
You don’t have to look hard to find better working class veteran representatives, Michael Prysner is right here.
Half your country is “nazi” right now, so what’s your solution, thanos snap them out of existence? There is no other path than forgiveness and reeducation.
That’s absolutely true, but it doesn’t mean we should have the forgiven misguided fools - if indeed that’s what he is - run for office. How about someone who wasn’t a mercenary and who knew what a nazi skull was not to tattoo it. It’s not a huge ask right? That’s as low as a bar can get.
You running for office? No? Weird.
Maybe we can find you a nice tattoo removal parlour soldier boy. New tech does miracles these days don’t despair.
He got it covered up btw.
Only 4 alts? I’m disappointed
What?
Oh well as long as he covered it up.
Unfortunately, I don’t think he is running for office.
He did make attempts to run for office, maybe he’ll try again, since PSL is more and more getting into running candidates. They’re running a candidate for Senate in MA for example.
He also wants to boost the navy for china