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Companies are burning through exorbitant sums of money to keep pace in the AI arms race. Debt is climbing.

At a press conference this afternoon, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he is concerned about inflation rates after new data showed the consumer price index at a three-year high of 4.2 percent.

“I love the inflation,” Trump said. In Februrary, before the US began bombing Iran, inflation was at 2.4 percent. Trump predicted that inflation will “come down like a rock” once the war is over.

Q: Are you concerned about the latest inflation numbers that came out this morning?TRUMP: No, I love it. I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over — do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T16:08:03.927Z

Meanwhile, Trump suggested that the US has been ferrying oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. “We’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil,” Trump said. “Every night…now I’m going to tell you because they just figured it out. It was very hard for me, I wanted to say it so badly, but I didn’t want to ruin it. But millions of barrels of oil has come out, and that’s why it’s at 85, $90 a barrel instead of 250.”

About an hour later, he reiterated this point via social media post: “Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz.”

When the war is over, “You will see oil drop to where it was before,” Trump said at today’s press conference.

It’s not clear when that will happen, though: today, Trump also vowed to continue attacking Iran. “We’re going to be attacking them…very hard,” he said. Almost 3,500 Iranians have been killed in the US and Israel’s war on the country since February 28.

Inflation continues to rise, according to a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report, due in no small part to President Donald Trump’s chaotic and unpopular war with Iran—but the orange dictator doesn’t seem bothered. In fact, Trump seems over the moon about it. During an Oval Office press conference on Wednesday, when asked about the terrible inflation numbers, Trump responded by saying, “I love it.”…

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A cartoon by Drew Sheneman. Related | Americans don’t want a data center in their backyard…

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North Koreans hackers posing as remote IT workers and recruiters remain a major threat to U.S., European, and Asian companies, accounting for about half of all attacks over the past 12 months.

Wing is expanding into seven more U.S. cities through its partnership with Walmart.

Delaney Hall has been many things: a jail, a halfway house, a rehabilitation facility. For the past year, however, it’s been something more fraught: an ICE detention center and the site of ongoing clashes between federal law enforcement and protesters. Reporters aren’t allowed in, health inspections are rare, and congressional oversight has been obstructed—as my recent interview with Rep. LaMonica McIver revealed. She’s now a year into a battle against criminal charges stemming from her attempt to inspect the facility.

So much of what we know about the inner workings of Delaney Hall comes from the letters that detainees have smuggled out with allegations of wormy food, denied medical care, and unsafe working conditions. In December 2025, 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, died inside.

With Delaney Hall now thrust into the national spotlight, there’s still so much we don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to two reporters who have been watching this closely.

I sat down with journalist Amanda Moore and my colleague Sophie Hurwitz, both of whom have reported from outside Delaney Hall for Mother Jones.

I asked them how this place became a flashpoint, what protesters and detainees are demanding, and who is ultimately to blame.

WATCH:

Republican operatives are growing increasingly desperate in the Senate race in Texas, where they’re pushing false, offensive, and contradictory attacks against James Talarico—who they fear could become the first Texas Democrat to win a Senate race in more than 30 years. The latest comes from a Trump-aligned super PAC, which is running a gross and deceptive AI-generated deepfake ad in which…

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They are angry at Redmond and will have their revenge. Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific bug hunter and possibly disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee, disclosed another zero-day vulnerability just hours after Redmond issued a record-breaking number of CVEs and fixes for June Patch Tuesday. The latest zero-day, RoguePlanet, targets Microsoft Defender and works against fully patched Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems, according to the researcher, who also released proof-of-concept exploit code for the security flaw. Assuming the attacker can win a race condition, this bug allows local privilege escalation and leads to SYSTEM-level control over an affected machine. Nightmare Eclipse (aka Chaotic Eclipse) is a disgruntled bug hunter with a deep understanding of Windows and an even deeper grudge against Microsoft. They claim to be an ex-employee, and accuse Redmond of ignoring vulnerability reports and refusing to communicate with them. "When I actively asked you to communicate with me, you refused, humiliated me and made sure to insult me in front of people," they wrote in an earlier blog post that also promised a “bone shattering” drop on July 14. "You defame me in public with your CVE-2026-45585 advisory even though you literally deleted the Microsoft account I used to report bugs to you with and I got zero pennies from doing so and I still happily did like an idiot," the post continued. Possibly as an outlet for this anger, and reportedly in response to Redmond's lack of action, Nightmare began releasing their findings to the public. RoguePlanet marks the seventh Microsoft zero-day that they found and disclosed - accompanied by either a PoC exploit or technical details - before Redmond issued a fix. Microsoft's initial response to those disclosures was widely interpreted as a threat of legal action, prompting massive outrage from the broader infosec community before Redmond sought to calm the backlash by stating it had "no intention to pursue action against individuals conducting or publishing security research." As of Tuesday, the previous six zero-days all have patches. Three of them, RedSun, UnDefend, and BlueHammer, came under attack soon after Nightmare published working exploit code for each and before Microsoft released security updates to address the flaws. The other three, YellowKey, GreenPlasma, and MiniPlasma, all have been fixed as of June’s Patch Tuesday. YellowKey (aka CVE-2026-45585) is a security feature bypass bug in Windows BitLocker. An attacker with physical access to the vulnerable system could bypass the BitLocker Device Encryption feature and gain access to the device's encrypted data. GreenPlasma (aka CVE-2026-45586) and MiniPlasma (aka CVE-2020-17103) are both privilege escalation flaws in the Collaborative Translation Framework (CTFMON) and the Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver that can be abused by an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally and gain SYSTEM access. When asked about RoguePlanet, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register that the Windows giant is “aware of the reported vulnerability and is actively investigating the validity and potential applicability of these claims." The spokesperson continued: "Microsoft is committed to investigating security issues and updating impacted products to protect customers as soon as possible. Importantly, we support coordinated vulnerability disclosure, an industry standard that protects customers and supports the research community by ensuring their findings are thoroughly investigated and addressed before being made public." Soon after Nightmare published a PoC for RoguePlanet, the ThreatLocker threat intelligence team validated the exploit code and said that they were “actively assessing impact, affected systems, and additional mitigations,” promising to share more findings “as they become available.” Tharros Labs senior vulnerability analyst and long-time respected security sleuth Will Dormann said he tested the exploit code, too. “It's reportedly not 100% reliable, but it worked on the first attempt for me,” Dormann wrote. Nightmare, for their part, rolled back the promise of a “bone shattering” drop on July 14. “(Un)fortunately I will be unable to mass disclose zerodays in July 14th, RoguePlanet took way more time than expected and truly drained me,” the researcher said on Tuesday. “I might take a break but I can't say for sure what I will be doing for next month, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's smtg. But the big thing is not happening. I did not intend to spread a mass panic with that post and I apologize for doing so.”®

⚡ Quick Take

• Amazon is not making Prime Video the streaming home of Project Hail Mary. Instead it’s sending Ryland Grace and Rocky to MGM+.
• MGM+ is a streaming service that many fewer people have, so this news will certainly be disappointing to some.
• MGM+ does not come with a Prime Video subscription and must be purchased separately in order to stream Project Hail Mary.
• The cost is $7.99 a month or $61.99 a year. A free trial is available for those who want to watch Project Hail Mary but do not want to pay.

Chris Miller and Phil Lord’s Project Hail Mary was a smash hit with critics and audiences alike. The film earned rave reviews and cleaned up at the box office. Now Amazon is hoping it will help build its subscriber base for its other streaming service, because Project Hail Mary is not going to stream on Prime Video. Instead, Project Hail Mary is heading exclusively to stream on MGM+, a totally separate Amazon streaming site.

Amazon MGM StudiosProject Hail Mary Will Stream on MGM+

Amazon MGM Studios has announced its big screen adaptation of Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel will make a much less popular streaming platform its home in both the U.S. and internationally. Project Hail Mary is going MGM+.

No, MGM+ Does Not Come Free with Your Prime Video Subscription

You don’t have to look it up; we can answer your obvious question right now: No, you do not get MGM+ even if you already pay for Prime Video. MGM+ is a separate “premium linear channel and streaming service” also owned and controlled by Amazon.

How Much Do You Have to Pay for MGM+ In Order to Stream Project Hail Mary?

Prime Video subscribers can add it to their account for $7.99 a month or $61.99 a year.

There Is a Free Trial, We Guess!

Obviously, the whole point of releasing one of the year’s most popular films exclusively on a lesser-known platform is to get people to subscribe. This is about driving new subscriptions, because why not! Fortunately, you can still watch Project Hail Mary at home without adding to your already out-of-control streaming costs. Amazon offers a seven-day free trial option, so you can try MGM+ before you have to pay for it.

Amazon MGM Studios

There are certainly plenty of other shows, movies, and documentaries worth checking out on the service. But if you only care about astrophage, then seven days is plenty of time to watch (and rewatch)Ryan Gosling hang out with the most amaze amaze amaze-ing alien. And you don’t have to wait long to do that. Project Hail Mary arrives at MGM+ on June 18, 2026.

And, of course, you can already purchase a digital copy on Prime Video. That’s the Amazon streaming service you already pay for, despite it not getting all of Amazon’s best movies.

The post PROJECT HAIL MARY to Stream Exclusively on MGM+ and Not Prime Video appeared first on Nerdist.

Former Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway shared her thoughts on Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner to Fox News, and it was dripping with hypocrisy. “Is there a magic number in the scandelabra that would make you stop?” Conway asked. “Would it have to do with Nazis or putting upon women, perhaps underage women, but definitely women, not your wife of two years?

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High schoolers at Renaissance participated in a photojournalism project about their school.

LA SELVA BEACH >> When news first broke last month that Pajaro Valley Unified School District administrators planned to close Renaissance High School this summer and relocate students to Duncan Holbert Preschool, the outrage was swift.

Teachers, students and parents urged the board of trustees to reject the proposal at a May 20 meeting. Most meeting attendees spoke of the challenges in relocating disabled preschoolers with such short notice. The board rejected the plan for now, but multiple trustees said at the meeting that Renaissance should be considered for closure.

Amid money troubles and declining enrollment, district leaders have said PVUSD needs to close schools to help fix the budget. A committee of parents, teachers and union representatives was established to make recommendations about which schools to close — it meets regularly and is tasked with coming up with recommendations for school closures by November.

Renaissance High is a continuation school for students who failed many of their classes and now need to make up credits or were expelled from other schools, including for truancy. 

People think we’re a school for criminals, or people who want to disobey, even though it’s the complete opposite. It’s for people that really need these opportunities and don’t really get them in other schools.

—Acciri, rising senior at Renaissance High School

Ariel Stonebloom, a biology teacher at Renaissance, said there’s often a stigma around these students. But many of them have failed or ditched classes because of family responsibilities, including caregiving for a sick parent, babysitting their siblings or working to help their parents make ends meet.

In an effort to capture the student experience at one of the county’s most critical schools, Santa Cruz Local collaborated with two of Stonebloom’s classes last month on a photo essay. The goal: to show the school through students’ eyes so that district leaders, residents and others who care about PVUSD issues could better understand the importance of this unique learning environment.

On May 21, about two dozen students shared six disposable film cameras and responded to prompts like:

• Photograph one place on campus where you feel safe.
• Photograph a person, place or thing that challenged you.
• Photograph one thing you don’t want to forget.

From left, Janella, Maria and Ariel Stonebloom.

Students and teachers play volleyball during lunch break.

Electives teacher Jason Solis and rising senior Jairo.

Students spent the one-hour class period roaming campus and popping in on their friends, favorite teachers and the best spots on campus to capture scenes in response to the prompts. Santa Cruz Local came back to Renaissance on June 2 to discuss the photos with students. Many of the seniors had already graduated, but several students reviewed the photos and wrote reflections.

During the class exercise, several students described liking Renaissance High more than their previous schools because of its small size. There were 92 students this past school year, and the school has a capacity of about 200 students. Students said that at Renaissance, students know all the teachers and teachers know all the students.

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“Here, we could communicate more. I feel like some teachers are my friends, and over there it’s just like strangers,” said Jairo, a rising senior who previously went to Watsonville High School, which he felt was “just too much” and “full of trash, gangsters, cars honking.”

Jairo described the above photo as “me and my favorite teacher” and wrote that he wants to “show people they can talk to their teacher like friends.”

Teacher Debbie Singleton’s sweatshirt. 

Social studies teacher Jennifer Puente. 

Emiliano takes a selfie with a teacher.

Rising senior Acciri also chose a photo of electives teacher Jason Solis to write about, and said he is “a very helpful teacher” and “an amazing flag football coach.”

She described the Renaissance community as helping her with social skills and giving her more opportunities for job training.

“It’s a very cool school, because it gives you many opportunities — it helps you with finding jobs,” she said. “I think many people should keep coming to the school because it’s really helpful and it has also helped me with talking with other people since everybody knows each other.”

Acciri debunked some stereotypes about Renaissance students: “People think we’re a school for criminals, or people who want to disobey, even though it’s the complete opposite. It’s for people that really need these opportunities and don’t really get them in other schools.”

She said other schools are so big, that the students that need the most support often won’t get it. 

“Many teachers don’t really pay attention to you, because it’s so many other people,” she said.

When asked what she looked forward to after high school, Acciri said she hoped to go to college, but if that doesn’t happen then “working, because I want to help my mom with the bills.”

Sitting with Acciri was Nancy. The two didn’t know each other before Renaissance, but are now friends. 

Nancy chose the photo of math teacher Pat Demera to write about. 

“During a whole year that I been in this school Pat has helped out many students. He’s always willing to help if you need help,” wrote Nancy, a rising senior. “If you don’t find me somewhere just go to his class, I’m always there,” she said.

Math teacher Pat Demera.

Hairo, who graduated this month, and biology teacher Ariel Stonebloom.

From left, Arturo, mental health clinician Matt Merill, Juan, Jairo, Isaiah and Nino. The school district laid off all 13 mental health clinicians in the district and Merrill worked his last day at Renaissance this month.

Juan wrote about the above photo, “I chose this photo because it shows friendship and represents safety and a place where people feel welcome.”

Of the 162 photos students took, many were of the natural spaces on campus, including the garden. 

Renaissance High is tucked away in La Selva Beach, a few blocks from the ocean on a rural road. Stonebloom said when new students arrive at Renaissance, many times they will take a couple weeks to adjust and then — they relax. 

“They actually come to school because they want to be here,” Stonebloom said. “Students that came because of credit deficiency because of ditching, will come to school consistently for the first time in their high school careers because they love it [at Renaissance].”

Maria sits near the field.

Nico walks on a path by the school’s field. Students showed a Santa Cruz Local reporter where to look for snakes in a spot where they go to sun and keep warm.

The entrance to the school’s garden.

In addition to teaching biology, Stonebloom stewards the garden. She said the garden is important to students, and it’s something that would likely not exist at another campus. Indeed, in both classes that did the photo project, students immediately suggested the garden as the first place to photograph.

Stonebloom said Renaissance is “quiet and nice and it’s an environment where they can be their whole selves in a way that is challenging in a traditional school environment.”

Several students, when asked why they liked Renaissance, said it was quiet.

“I really like nature,” Janette, a rising senior, wrote in Spanish about the above photo. “I want other people to know that this place is very pretty and calm, and the nature makes the school special.”

Alondra walks through the garden.

The garden is colorful and overgrown.

Corn and strawberries grow in the garden. ‘Each plant is full of memories,’ said Acciri.

Students in Ariel Stonebloom’s second period class.

What do you think of Renaissance High? #wpforms-31797 { --wpforms-field-size-input-height: 43px; --wpforms-field-size-input-spacing: 15px; --wpforms-field-size-font-size: 16px; --wpforms-field-size-line-height: 19px; --wpforms-field-size-padding-h: 14px; --wpforms-field-size-checkbox-size: 16px; --wpforms-field-size-sublabel-spacing: 5px; --wpforms-field-size-icon-size: 1; --wpforms-label-size-font-size: 16px; --wpforms-label-size-line-height: 19px; --wpforms-label-size-sublabel-font-size: 14px; --wpforms-label-size-sublabel-line-height: 17px; --wpforms-button-size-font-size: 17px; --wpforms-button-size-height: 41px; --wpforms-button-size-padding-h: 15px; --wpforms-button-size-margin-top: 10px; --wpforms-container-shadow-size-box-shadow: none; } Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Are you a current or former student, parent or teacher at Renaissance High School? Share a memory with us for a future story about the school. *

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The post Inside Renaissance High: students photograph their school amid threat of closure appeared first on Santa Cruz Local.

⚡ Quick Take

• The latest trailer for season three of The Walking Dead: Dead City finds Maggie and Negan at odds over if Manhattan can truly be a new start for humanity.

Recently, AMC released its first teaser for the third season of The Walking Dead: Dead City. But with this newest trailer, we get many more story details. We see that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has become enamored with the idea that humanity can truly rebuild out of the city of Manhattan, a place with water, food, electricity — and lots of weapons. But her companion and frenemy, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is far too cynical to believe that can be possible anywhere. Can they make the dream of a truly functioning society in New York come to pass? Judging from The Walking Dead: Dead City season three trailer below, they’ll certainly have their work cut out for them.

Alongside the trailer, here’s AMC’s official synopsis for the third season of The Walking Dead: Dead City:

In season three, Maggie (Cohan)and Negan (Morgan) finally put aside their differences to build the first thriving community in Manhattan since the apocalypse, but when chaos in the city begins to arise, they are forced to question: have they learned from their old wounds or will their dark past spell doom for the entire city?  

The Walking Dead: Dead City is the fourth spin-off of the massively successful post-apocalyptic zombie franchise. The first season of Dead City premiered in 2023. But production for the second season was delayed thanks to that year’s WGA strikes. Season two finally dropped in 2025, and that year, AMC announced that the eventual fourth season would be the show’s last. But we still have a long road ahead before we get to the end. For now, we’ll content ourselves with this new The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 trailer and all its twists and turns.

AMC Networks

In addition to Cohan and Morgan, The Walking Dead: Dead City season three also stars Jimmi Simpson, Raúl Castillo, Aimee Garcia, Michael Emery, and Logan Kim, who plays Hershel, Maggie and Glenn’s now-teenaged son. Kim replaced Kien Michael Spiller, who played the character on the original The Walking Dead. The first episode of season three premieres on AMC and AMC+ on July 26.

The post TWD: DEAD CITY Season 3 Trailer Shows NYC on the Brink appeared first on Nerdist.

ALT

British Labour Party leadership accused Elon Musk of inciting violence on social media ahead of massive ongoing white supremacist, anti-immigration riots centered in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

“It’s appalling. Anyone that is seeking to drive and exploit a situation like this to drive their own political agenda is grievously wrong and doing damage,” Labour Party Chair Anna Turley told LBC News on Wednesday, in reference to Musk’s remarks. “We’ve seen children, families having to flee their homes on the streets of Belfast last night.”

On Tuesday night, rioters reportedly lit buildings and vehicles on fire and broke into and damaged homes, with at least some targeting people of color, in response to news that a Sudanese refugee with legal status was charged with attempted murder for stabbing and attempting to behead another man on Monday night. 

As far-right activists called for “mass protest” across the UK early Tuesday, Musk quoted one of the viral posts, writing, “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!” 

Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!! https://t.co/73GDcLLFwv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2026

What’s the “change” Musk is demanding? A short list of some his activity on X on Tuesday morning:

• Tuesday 11:03am ET: Musk posts: “The truth is that there are VASTLY more hate crimes, especially aggravated rape and murder, per person by Blacks against Whites than the other way around.” 
• Tuesday 11:27am ET: Musk promotes a clip of remarks he made to a crowd last September via video during a separate anti-immigration protest in the UK where he said, “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back, or you die.” 
• Tuesday 11:32am ET: Musk posts “This is the way” in response to Rupert Lowe, a right-wing member of Parliament vowing that his political party, Restore Britain, will “aim to prosecute officials and politicians who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities”—a campaign that will “apply retrospectively.” 

The truth is that there are VASTLY more hate crimes, especially aggravated rape and murder, per person by Blacks against Whites than the other way around.

The is not remotely debatable, as the numbers are so extremely lopsided! https://t.co/li1ipYrHWu

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2026

He continued into Wednesday:

• Wednesday 8:48am ET: Musk boosts a post claiming that “the left” conducted the “greatest rhetorical heist of the century” by using the word “racist” to counter criticisms of their policies.  
• And about an hour later: Musk reposts a graphic depicting a judge beating a person holding a “White Lives Matter” sign with their gavel. 

pic.twitter.com/oIneMaNCFe

— Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith) June 9, 2026

Elon Musk is pressing for a race war, where the violence from the left requires one to “fight back, or die.”

It’s a strange and perhaps fitting irony that Musk’s rhetoric comes the same week he could turn into the world’s first trillionaire with a SpaceX initial public offering that could tank your retirement fund.

A wave of anti-immigrant violence rocked Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday night after a Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder in a knife attack in the city. Racists have used the tragedy to stoke outrage at the broader immigrant community, and they’ve been aided by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person. The wave of violence forced immigrant families to evacuate their homes after…

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The media giant is pushing to expand its mobile and gaming business.

The most AI-obsessed firms are spending roughly $7,500 monthly per employee on AI, per Ramp AI Index. That's not more than an engineer's salary — yet.

Graham Platner, the rugged oyster farmer positioning himself as a progressive populist, won Maine’s Democratic Senate Primary on Tuesday, earning more than 70 percent of the vote so far. He is now slated to face incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins in the November general election.

By some measures, the outcome was long-expected, since Governor Janet Mills announced she was suspending her Senate bid back in April. But at that point, only some of the salacious revelations about Platner’s past had come to light: namely, his tattoo resembling a Nazi Totenkopf symbol (he has since covered it up), and the racist and sexist posts he penned on Reddit more than a decade ago, including ones questioning why Black people “don’t tip” and criticizing sexual assault victims for not taking responsibility for what happened to them.

Since then, additional allegations against Platner have emerged. One June article by the New York Times quoted some of Platner’s past romantic partners, including one who was a Republican operative, who characterized their relationships with Platner as “unsettling.” And a May story by the Wall Street Journal indicated Platner had sexted other women while married. During his speech accepting the primary nomination on Tuesday, Platner leaned into a redemption-arc narrative. “If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics, and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,” Platner said, speaking at a YMCA. “And the reason I believe that is because I have lived it—and the reason I have lived it is because of my wife.”

“If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics, and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change.”

A couple of decades ago, these revelations would have been disqualifying. But as the Democrats confront how to win back voters who have—now twice—elected a president with a penchant for his own sexist, racist, and even criminal behaviors, Platner’s proliferating controversies are perhaps less disqualifying, and possibly even endearing to some discontented Americans.

As New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie said in a recent podcast episode about the rise of the “dirtbag” Democrat, Platner is not just a candidate but a manifestation of the crossroads at which the Democratic Party now finds itself.

“It stands with how you view the kinds of people that Democrats tend to recruit to run for office. Should they be polished, with the right credentials?” asked Bouie. “Or should there be a bit of a looser and more open approach to candidate recruitment?”

And yet, character does matter. At least it seemed to be relevant in 2020, when Collins focused on her opponent, Maine Speaker of the House Sarah Gideon, the then-Democratic nominee, and accused her of not investigating a fellow state representative who had been accused of preying upon teenage girls. Six years later, I wanted to know how a candidate like Platner pulled off a victory in Maine’s Democratic primary in spite of—or maybe even because of—his questionable past. So I asked Musa al-Gharbi, an associate sociology professor at Stony Brook University who wrote the best-selling book “We Have Never Been Woke,” which examines how political correctness isn’t the remedy to inequality that elites have assumed.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why do you think Graham Platner emerged as the winner in the Maine Senate Primary?

One thing that influenced how the primary shook out is that there are a lot of people within the Democratic coalition who recognize there’s a large cultural distance between them and the rest of society. Maine is a pretty rural state; it’s a pretty purple state, and so they were maybe thinking, hoping, that someone like Platner would send a different set of social signals than the typical Democrat. The problem, though, is that on the one hand, he’s someone who positions himself as working-class, but the reality is he is from a pretty affluent family. He positions himself as an oyster farmer, but the farm provides stuff mostly to his mother’s restaurant. The house that he lives in was bought with a $200,000 loan from his father. An open question in the general election would be: To what extent are swing voters going to buy into this portrayal of himself that he’s tried to cultivate?

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) is another example of a wealthy person from elite schools who positions himself as this average-Joe kind of a person. Even to the point of wearing hoodies to Congress. Here’s a pro tip: Someone who’s genuinely poor and from a working-class background who made it into Congress wouldn’t be showing up in a hoodie.

So, how much do Platner’s alleged controversies factor into the choices of voters who are on the fence in the General Election?

A lot of working-class voters, irregular voters, and so on, are often over-willing to overlook various types of indiscretions of politicians who represent them, as long as they have the sense that this person is on their side and not looking down on them—even if the candidate isn’t a saint, even if they have serious character flaws.

In a world where a lot of voters have come to feel like neither party and almost no candidate is actually going to help them or improve their lives, then the main thing that they have left to vote on is basically, “Okay, well, if my life is not going to be meaningfully improved by these folks in Washington either way, then I can at least vote for the person who doesn’t hate me.”

In his best-selling 2024 book, “We Have Never Been Woke,” Sociologist Musa Al-Gharbi explains how elite progressives use social justice rhetoric to gain more power, without helping the marginalized people they claim to care about.

Is there a world in which Platner’s controversies and mainstream media’s reactions to them make him even more appealing to some voters in Maine?

To the extent that people feel like a politician is being held to an irrelevant standard (i.e. Who cares about his sex life? I’m not hiring him to be my son-in-law), or to a needlessly high standard, then that can redound to the benefit of the person who is being targeted. It can generate more sympathy.

For instance, when people were calling Trump racist. For a lot of voters who themselves feel unfairly maligned as racists, it just evokes something in them that actually makes this person more sympathetic to them than they otherwise might be—even if they don’t like the way the [politician] is talking about racial issues.

And you could see a lot of this in the polls and surveys, even from most Republican primary voters in 2016. Most Republican voters reported being deeply disturbed by Trump’s rhetoric and behaviors with respect to race and gender. They [largely] didn’t approve of them, which runs contrary to a lot of our assumptions that they voted for him because he’s a racist. No, they voted for him because the other choice was this person that they viewed as corrupt, who called them deplorables, who said that they wanted to put coal out of business.

You also saw this with President Bill Clinton. A lot of polls showed that the way that the media responded to Bill Clinton made the public sympathize with him more, even though they didn’t approve of his behavior. They didn’t approve of him cheating on his wife or exploiting an intern, but they thought the attacks were out of proportion and were devoid, importantly, from the main responsibilities of the job.

Don’t President Donald Trump and Platner have a few things in common? They both ran as populist outsiders facing various controversies regarding racism, sexism, and infidelity. They certainly aren’t perfect on paper, but maybe that makes some voters feel less judged for their own improprieties?

They’re both deeply flawed candidates in many respects. But one disadvantage that Platner has is that a lot of the people who have felt frustrated or alienated have voted Republican in recent cycles. The Republican Party has been the party of people who feel that sense of alienation, and in this case, Platner is running against a Republican—a Republican, sure, who bucks Trump sometimes, but Platner is also positioning himself as someone who’s bucking Trump. For the swing voters who still think the Republican Party is a better vessel for their frustrations and more proximate to them in various respects, Platner has an uphill struggle there.

That said, one thing you can clearly see in the polling is that a whole bunch of folks who drifted away from the Democratic party in recent cycles are now very frustrated with Trump. They still don’t hold the Democrats in high esteem, either. But it’s a two-party system, and Trump is the one in power, so if people are dissatisfied with the way things are going, that will probably benefit Democrats in these midterms.

Why do you think swing voters are becoming dissatisfied with Trump?

One of the things anti-woke people often take for granted when they get elected is that they were elected in the first place because the public is tired of culture-war stuff taking precedence at the expense of the things that they care about. Rather than concluding, “Oh, people are tired of the culture wars,” the message that anti-woke people often internalize is, “Oh, people are done with left-leaning culture wars.”

Some anti-woke people, like Trump, think voters want the culture wars to simply go in the other direction. If you look at the Trump administration and its focus on wanting to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and put Trump’s face on everything from passports to coins—there’s this really intense focus on symbols, even though a lot of Americans are struggling with more concrete things. People who voted against Biden voted because he seemed like this addled old man: The world seemed to be burning, and he seemed to be incapable of doing anything about it. Well, that’s basically the same situation that voters face now with Trump in office, so that probably won’t work out well for him in the midterms.

If a conservative candidate were facing identical allegations to Platner’s, do you think the media and other perceived elites would be responding in the same way?

Certainly, if a Republican candidate said, “Hey, look, I got this Nazi tattoo. I didn’t know what it meant at the time”—they wouldn’t be given the same grace.

In terms of the extramarital stuff, that’s hard to determine, because Trump has really lowered the bar with that for Republicans. In the past, a Republican who had serial infidelity would have been lambasted by the media as a hypocrite, especially if he positioned himself as some kind of Christian or family-values kind of guy. In Platner’s case, he doesn’t really position himself that way. He says he loves his wife and all, but he’s not the family-values candidate, and the Democratic Party isn’t the family-values party. So he’s maybe less susceptible to that kind of angle.

What should establishment or elite Democrats and the mainstream media learn from Platner’s race so far?

Someone like Platner is kind of directionally correct for the party. He’s plain-spoken and tends to emphasize issues voters care about in a very economically populist way. He’s also unapologetically manly. He’s a war vet, he has a strong physique, he does a job that is, at least superficially, physically demanding. He has this kind of unapologetic masculinity about him that isn’t necessarily toxic, or that doesn’t have to be. You’d want a guy whose understanding of what manliness means is—among other things—taking care of your family, being a good leader, putting the needs of your community ahead of yourself and your own ambitions and desires. Unfortunately, the extent to which Platner could be this kind of positive male alternative is undercut by the allegations against him.

That doesn’t mean women can’t be strong Democratic candidates. The real problem for both Hillary [Clinton] and Kamala [Harris], wasn’t that they were women, it’s that they were both kind of urban, highly credentialed people whose whole public persona and manner was like, “Look, I have all these wonky technical plans, and I’ve workshopped everything I said with seven different committees before it comes out of my mouth.” If [Democrats] nominate a man who’s like that, that man is not going to succeed in Maine, either.

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