Scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is being touted by elites as a worthy representative of the working class, a label that Charlie Cooke, on today’s edition of The Editors, firmly rejects.

“As somebody who is the son of a veteran and the grandson of a veteran as well, both of whom were objectively working class, this line I keep hearing from people that ‘this is just what you get if you want to be represented by working class people or veterans’ is incredibly offensive and wrong,” says Charlie.

Platner, says Charlie, “is not what you are intrinsically like if you’re working class. It’s not what you’re intrinsically like if you are a veteran or if you saw action in combat. That is a bigoted slander of millions of people who are not like this at all, who don’t cheat on their spouse, who don’t join underage sites, who don’t get Nazi tattoos, who actually don’t sign up for the military because they want to kill people.”

Charlie voices frustration with “this smug middle-class progressive view of working-class people as if they’re pets who can barely tie their shoes without saying terrible things or doing terrible things. It’s just not true.”

“The people who say that ought to be regarded as what they are, which is condescending, myopic chancers.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.