Time to Ditch Platner

Why Jerome Powell is a better guide than Thomas Massie or Graham Platner

Last Sunday, I had the privilege of attending the deeply moving presentation of Profile in Courage Awards at the John F. Kennedy Library to the people of Minneapolis and former Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Four Minnesotans — a school superintendent, an imam, a formerly undocumented immigrant turned nonprofit leader, and a neighborhood activist — and the man who directed U.S. interest rate policy all communicated an unwavering respect for the dignity of their fellow human beings. Members of Renee Good’s family were in attendance. Bruce Springsteen provided a video message. The skies thundered and rain poured down on the massive canopy. Nearly a thousand people rose again and again in standing ovations.

The opportunity to bear witness to the courage of the people on the stage was cleansing. We were washing away the viciousness of our age.

Powell’s speech is available online and worth reading. He anchored it in the Declaration of Independence, invoking “the timeless ideal that all of us are created equal.” This ideal should sustain an unbreakable commitment to the rule of law, for only by respecting the rule of law do we indeed hold everyone equal, fending off domination by any one individual. Powell quoted John Adams: “Ours is a government of laws, not men.”

The unity of these two ideals — of human equality and respect for the rule of law — has done something special for America. As Powell put it, “The United States has long been the leader of the world’s freedom-seeking people — the indispensable nation. Other countries know us as a nation built on integrity, and that integrity must be maintained.”

Politics always puts pressure on integrity. Pursuit of victory bends the light and distorts vision.

Earlier this year, in this Substack, I began to argue for the need for a Loyal Opposition in America — people who will come together across party lines to check the abuses of an overreaching executive. We need that Loyal Opposition, but the Loyal Opposition also needs to be fueled by commitment to universal human dignity, the rule of law, and integrity.

I made the mistake of putting forward Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R) as an exemplar of the Loyal Opposition. He has been standing up to President Donald Trump, yes, but he has done it without embodying the spirit of the laws, which requires a commitment to rule of law rooted in respect for universal human equality. Massie has warmly embraced people who traffic in antisemitism, including some who wear “American Reich” T-shirts, invoke Jewish conspiracy tropes, and even self-describe as antisemitic. He has included such individuals in special events for favored supporters at his home.

We cannot defeat autocratic executive overreach by opening gates to bias — that is just to trade one form of domination for another. Members of the Loyal Opposition should be defined by steadfast commitment to the ideal that we are all created equal. That commitment is the price of entry into the club.

I made a mistake with Massie.

The Democrats are also making some mistakes these days. An exceptionally antisemitic Democratic candidate placed first in a primary in Texas’s 35^th Congressional District in March. Among other things, Maureen Galindo vowed to turn a local immigrant detention center “into a prison for American Zionists.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) did call her language “vile” and “disqualifying,” and she lost the run-off, but the fact that she got as far as she did with a Democratic electorate is cause for alarm.

The fact that Graham Platner with a nearly 20-year-old Nazi tattoo on his breast, the meaning of which he surely understood, and with self-explanations that routinely strain credulity, has gotten as far as he has is also cause for alarm. Yes, the Democrats are now in a pickle in Maine, and so the temptation to accept the unacceptable is immense.

But the simple fact is that rule of law constitutionalism — the way of life that Powell celebrated in his speech — has always depended on norms. It is impossible to legislate and regulate every last item of behavior. Our nation’s checks and balances rest on people willing to put lawfulness at the center of their spirits. When that is absent, as it is in the current administration, we see how much the institutions strain. The entire constitutional order is backstopped, finally, only by character.

If the Loyal Opposition is going to prevail against what Trumpism has unleashed, its members must be willing to stand up not only to Trump himself, but also to those within our own ranks who abandon personal integrity — and to those who indulge the toxic scapegoating of antisemitism instead of holding fast to our sacred commitment to equality.