“Extreme Makeover” is a type of reality show that has been successful both when applied to participants who had to change their health habits, hygiene and clothing choices, and when applied to participants’ homes, which showed disrepair or structural problems that needed to be fixed.
The programs ‘worked’ because the premise is simple: people and places – no matter how messy – can change, can be made attractive and functional with the right amount of attention, care and craftsmanship.
Now comes a new offshoot: “Extremist Makeover.”
Although this reboot is not yet a reality show on a streaming platform, development within the Democratic Party is well advanced.
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The Democratic nominee for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat — currently occupied by perhaps the most moderate, intelligent, trusted, hardworking and admired senator on both sides of the aisle, Senator Susan Collins — will be oysterman Graham Platner.
Platner is not a “liberal.” He is not a ‘leftist’. He’s an extremist. Platner comes from that country “beyond the margins” in American politics that every now and then throws a candidate of the crazy left or crazy right onto the election beaches after an intra-party primary campaign, a nominee who simply does not play within the “teens”, let alone the “forties” of American political football.
The extremists get lucky in the primaries for various strange reasons, and then their parties pretend to be surprised when their strange nominees are thrown out in the general election.
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So I predict it will work out for Mr. Platner, whose many, um, idiosyncrasies have been in the public eye for a few months now.
Platner’s most famous ‘eccentricity’ to date is his ‘Totenkopf’ tattoo of the skull which was proudly worn by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Nazi era, particularly by the SS-Totenkopfverbaende, one of the original three branches of the SS, along with the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS. The SS-Totenkopfverbaende were guards at the concentration extermination camps. Of the many despicable symbols of that regime, this is the equal when it comes to projecting evil intent and deadly, indiscriminate killings. Asking for that tattoo is a conscious choice. Storing it for years is a different story.
That includes the many Reddit posts Platner has made over the course of his life, addressing the waterfront of bigotry and what we used to quaintly call “hate speech” but which Democrats now call “opportunities to grow,” or, more frankly, auditions.
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Senator Collins has had to deal with left-wing Democrats in previous elections. In her most recent campaign, in 2020, Democrats nominated the far-left Speaker of the Maine House, Sara Gideon. Despite being outspent more than 2-to-1 (pro-Gideon spending was just $48 million, while Collins’ war chest was $23 million) and trailing in almost every major poll from start to finish, Collins won her race by nine points, even though then-candidate Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump by the same margin. So nearly 20% of Mainers switched in 2020 from voting for a Democrat at the top of the ticket to a Republican at the next line in the Senate race.
That’s not just because Collins is truly loved and admired throughout Maine, which she is. Collins is also the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and thus in a position to help Mainers across the board, from every worker at Bath Iron Works to every lobsterman or fisherman who is beset by ridiculous federal regulations, and every year Mainer is plagued by rising winter heating costs because Democrats are blocking pipeline permits, which would significantly reduce the cost of getting energy to the Pine Tree State.
And it’s not just because Collins is so widely respected that she serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where only the most trusted senators from both parties sit and oversee the nation’s most classified programs.
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It’s also because Collins is an excellent politician, always out and about in her state asking Mainers for their votes.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, leaves the Capitol chamber in Washington, July 24, 2025. Collins is from “the County,” the vast and northernmost Aroostook County, which is as authentically Maine as it gets. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Collins is from “the County,” the vast and northernmost Aroostook County, which is as authentically Maine as it gets. Collins is also the equal of any example of a friendly and welcoming elected official who understands that a senator’s job is to serve her constituents, not the stand on far-left podcasts.
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Collins and Platner couldn’t be more different. It’s possible that “normal” and hospitable Maine wants a radical, verbal bomb-throwing extremist as its next senator. But I don’t think so.
It’s rare to have a Susan Collins represent your state from positions of power and influence, and do so with class and humility. Trading that for a skull and online bigotry doesn’t seem like a bet Mainers are going to make, no matter how many millions of dollars the Antifa-adjacent parties pour into the race of the far left across the country.
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