Roy Tucker, a ski lift operator, lives in Greenwood.

Up until a few days ago, I was thrilled with the candidacy of Graham Platner. Despite some reservations, he seemed to represent a desperately needed path toward effectively opposing fascism electorally. He was a breath of fresh air.

Opposition research had revealed some beliefs that, while not electorally ideal, at least suggested that his left-wing beliefs were genuinely held. Then came the revelation that he had, emblazoned on his chest, an explicit Nazi symbol.

Previously I was an evangelist. Now, I believe that if Graham Platner has a shred of dignity left in his body he should apologize and end his campaign.

This op-ed is not an argument as to why the tattoo is unacceptable. Defenses I’ve read from pundits and Platner himself are weak, and I trust the reader to come to their own conclusions. Here, I’m using Platner to speak to broad, highly consequential faults of our system and our culture.

There is hardly an American out there who does not worry on a regular basis about the endemic cynicism, aimlessness and hopelessness of our youth. Pundits endlessly pontificate as to where the pervasive ironic detachment and esoteric nihilism originates. We blame social media, video games, “wokeism,” the decay of social norms, recessions, the pandemic and everything else under the sun.

Of course there is no singular answer, but here’s one I don’t often hear. Those of us with most of our lives ahead are hopeless not due to delusion, but a valid interpretation of material reality.

I’m not encouraging hopelessness, but if we are too afraid to face the facts of the world we’ve made and the future we’re making, we cannot fix the problem.

Young people have nothing solid on which to stand and nothing substantive to reach for. The civic institutions that were supposed to provide a foundation have shed their facades and revealed a void that consumes our vitality and leaves us with nothing of substance or meaning.

The state we were taught to revere has been weaponized by fascists. In another world, such a moment could be invigorating and unifying — it would give the compassionate and the caring among us a common enemy, a battle into which otherwise aimless energy could be productively channeled. We got a taste of this in 2020, but the institution ostensibly opposing fascism soaked up this beautiful, explosive passion and ground it down into nothing.

Democrats continued the brutal immigration policies, gave up on promises like universal child care and a higher minimum wage, mocked the very notion of criminal justice reform and lied endlessly about a campaign of extermination we watched unfold with our own eyes.

When this strategy of returning to “business as usual” predictably failed and Donald Trump returned to power, Democrats capitulated endlessly. They told us each atrocity was just a distraction and that we should channel our energy not into defending the marginalized, but into whatever issue polled the best. This fecklessness is precisely why Trump won.

The institution meant to represent us consumed our enthusiasm, chewed it up and, knowing we had no other electoral options, spit it back in our faces and demanded we be thankful for the privilege. And we wonder why hopelessness pervades.

Graham Platner sold us the idea that none of it has to be this way, that some people genuinely care and truly threaten the status quo.

This scandal revealed him to be not a threat to the system, but an essential component: another in a long line of power-hungry husks that sap what little hope, passion and belief the young and the marginalized have so bravely maintained and channel it into a meaningless project of self-aggrandizement.

Platner’s crime is not just providing ammunition for the fascists and the feckless, it’s the theft of passion from beautifully resilient people with almost nothing left to give. This keeps me up at night. I hope it keeps Graham up, too.