Journalism is partly about instinct and partly about experience. The two work together. Dig into enough stories and alarm bells go off and red flags wave. The pattern recognition kicks in because your subconscious spots something off.

With leftists, one of the most obvious red flags is a hard-luck working class story.

Leftists love those, but they are so very rarely true. Take Gov. Gavin Newsom, the third generation of wealthy power players in California Dem politics, tried to pretend to be working class.

But sometimes the costume is better.

Take Graham Platner, the subject of my story today, the ‘oysterman’ candidate in Maine backed by Bernie. It didn’t take me long to find out that Graham was the grandson of Warren Platner, a world famous modernist architect, the son of a powerful local lawyer, and that his working class routine was another outfit.

But what led me to look for it was that red flag. I’m not an ‘oysterman’ and I’ve never been to Maine. I can’t spot a real or a fake one by looking. But what I don’t know about oystermen, I more than make up for by knowing leftists. And I know that the more they dress the part, the more fake they are.

People who come out of working class backgrounds and look for a more important job try to ‘dress up’, ‘dressing down’ isn’t working class, it’s an upper class leftist affectation.

I can tell you that because I grew up poor.

People who come from barns want to move to high-rises, but people who grew up in mansions want to move to barns because it feels more ‘authentic’.

Real working class politics isn’t fake dirt. It’s trying to look clean even when dirt is all you have. Fake leftist working class politics is millionaires trying to look just dirty enough for the camera.