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Platner didn't stick it to the establishment because he's not actually anti-establishment. He's just the next-generation model of Democratic cipher candidate managed by Democratic consultants to whisper to Democratic focus groups. His oyster farm is all pretend and his appeal to blue collar voters is imaginary -- Platner's appeal is to white college-educated Dems who want to believe they appeal to blue collar voters. The fantasy isn't really about beating the establishment. The fantasy is winning. The fantasy is that Platner can speak to this class of voters Democrats don't know how to reach but know they need to reach to win. Platner's appeal wasn't that he could stick it to Janet Mills, Platner's appeal was that he could stick it to Susan Collins. As that fantasy evaporated, the Dems dumped him.
Trump was genuinely an anti-establishment candidate and they genuinely pulled all the tricks in the book to stop him. Republican officials refused to endorse Trump, withheld donor networks and infrastructure and cash, denounced him on TV and refused to cooperate with his campaign. Even after he got into office Republican officials undermined Trump in every possible way -- cooperating with investigations against Trump, McCain's Obamacare betrayal, leaks, moles in his staff and inner circle, denunciations from sitting Republican senators, the whole nine yards. If rumors are to believed lots of them wanted to impeach Trump but were scared of what the voters would do to them if they did. And Trump, clearly, believed his own pitch because he felt that his campaign against the establishment was more important than his reputation after accusations were made against him.
Well, it's more important to understand what Platner thinks of himself. You are absolutely correct that a certain group of Democratic operatives/consultants went and find Platner specifically to be anti-Democratic-establishment and appeal to blue collar workers. But I believe that individuals can take responsibilities for their own actions. Platner decided to enter the race, Platner decided to drop out of it, all the consulting was at best just influence. I do believe Platner believes in himself as anti-establishment, I do believe Platner thinks he is the kind of anti-establishment that is not like Trump, I do believe that Platner feels a modicum of guiltiness or "for the cause" or shame or whatever that led him to drop out. It's the fact that he drops out led me to believe he is not non-guilty/shameless. I don't want to conflate being anti-establishment with non-guilty/shameless, they're two different things.
And by extension, yeah, you are also correct that Trump is an anti-establishment figure (with, to me, establishment being the old Republican side that was phased out between 2018 and 2022). That is only related, but not foundational, to whether he is guilty of anything (which I think he does) and also of whether Trump himself feels guilty of anything (which I certainly think he doesn't). To me, they are all related together. Trump is shameless, thinks himself non-guilty, and therefore never back down from establishment attacks. To me, Trump is has been unethical on many things, and where is the line between unethical and illegal I don't know but I would suspect he crossed it before on some of those many things. But being anti-establishment and then won, Trump also has high amount of political power (like you said about how Republican establishments are afraid of impeaching him), so maybe figuring out whether he stepped over the line or not becomes unclear. It's like "Mao was 70% correct and 30% incorrect", the 30% incorrect was pretty bad, but for now he's still revered for the 70%. And maybe in the long river of history the public opinion on these two figures might change, but for now it is what it is.
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