I grow weary of the Graham Platner blame game
I never liked Maine’s now-former Democratic candidate for Senate, but we shouldn’t act like deciding whether to back him was an easy choice before this week.
Graham Platner appears to be in all likelihood a complete scumbag.
He is now credibly accused of sexual assault. He used to have a literal Nazi tattoo (until he covered it up). And even if not for that, he seemed to have a general record of infidelity and behaving badly toward women, and his social media history suggests someone with poor judgment.
I never supported him. I was always rather uneasy about publicly endorsing someone with his past. I am glad that he has dropped out of the race for United States Senate in Maine.
But this wasn’t the easy call that the centrist wing of the Democratic party, which I suspect has still not gotten over the progressive left’s perceived betrayal of Joe Biden, seems to think it was.
Let me explain.
First, I need to talk about my credibility here. I am not usually a defender of the left wing of the party. I often think they put their weight behind idiotic candidates with idiotic positions. I was the one screaming during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest era: if “defund the police” doesn’t really mean “get rid of all police” then stop f***ing using that slogan!
When they point to Zohran Mamdani as evidence a self-described socialist can win American elections, I say: the rest of the country is not New York City, you absolute morons.
So when I, of all people, tell you that I am irked by posters like Swann Marcus and Centrism Fan Acct insisting they knew better all along, that they don’t get why people like Bernie Sanders and the Pod Save America bros backed Platner until the newest and most damning allegations, I think you should listen.
We must acknowledge a truth here: for the entire duration of the Democratic primary in Maine, Platner was the only viable candidate. Period. 78-year-old Maine Gov. Janet Mills never gained traction in the race, and also ran her primary campaign with all the enthusiasm of a housecat in the car on its way to the vet. Platner was well-liked in spite of his flaws (which I should be clear, until the latest allegations, all that was really obvious was that he was a shitty loser who cheats on his wife).
What does that mean for people working in Democratic politics? It means they either had to back Platner or cede Maine, a very winnable state, to Susan Collins.
Collins, who voted for two members of the Supreme Court majority that later overturned the constitutional right to abortion despite claiming to be pro-choice, who has repeatedly voiced “concern” about President Donald Trump’s agenda and then turned around and enabled it.
For Democrats, defeating Collins is imperative. And we live in an era where the president can proclaim that he likes to grab women by the pu**y with no consequence. In fact, the president of the United States is a literal adjudicated rapist. He has been convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records. He tried to do a coup. Does it really make sense to clutch your pearls over a candidate who appears to be a sleazeball but is otherwise popular with voters?
I feel the need to highlight this once again: the sexual assault allegation against Platner was not public until it became public, which was three days ago.
But what about the cheating, you say? The president cheats on his wife too, who cares.
But what about the Nazi tattoo? This one is of course a bit tougher of a sell, and is the entire reason why I never backed him on any of my social media. But hear me out.
I have spent a good portion of my life around military people. My mom was in the Air Force. I was in high school JROTC, so most of my friends from high school went on to join the military. I am going to share another truth with you: there are a lot of people in the United States armed forces who do stupid, foolish things. Platner’s story that he got the tattoo without knowing what it meant and discovered it later was and remains absolutely, 1000% believable to me. I do not believe he is a Nazi, just a moron.
So the situation to me, prior to the latest allegation, appeared to be that Platner is an idiot former infantryman in the way that many former infantrymen are, who also happened to be the only person with any chance of beating Collins.
Politics, as you may know, is not a clean game you can play without ever compromising a single one of your values. It is a dirty game. It is zero-sum. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. When the story was “candidate who may or may not be a piece of shit is up against a key member of the autocratic president’s Republican Senate majority,” it’s not hard to find your way to supporting the candidate who might be a piece of shit.
This right here is the whole reason I prefer to write about politics from a safe distance rather than involve myself directly. I had the luxury of not endorsing Platner because I am a random writer on the internet. If you are a Bernie Sanders or a Jon Favreau and your life’s mission is to win political power for the Democrats, then you had two choices. You could sacrifice that political power and the good that can be done with it for your own personal comfort. Or you could trust that Platner was popular for a reason, hope that nothing too bad comes out about him, and encourage people to vote for him.
So yes, it is good that Platner has dropped out of the Senate race now that there is a credible allegation that he is a rapist. There is a line, and that is it. But I do not begrudge those who supported him previously for doing so. And pointing fingers at each other accomplishes precisely nothing. Collins is still beatable. Democrats must get over this debacle and move on. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.