I’ve avoided discussing Graham Platner here all this time. I could tell early in his rise that his campaign was going to be an ugly mess that was going to tempt a lot of good people to support him. Bernie Sanders endorsed him!
Right away, I thought “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t sport a Nazi tattoo?”
Then there were the old internet posts, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t have a history of internet bigotry?”
Then we got the accounts of crude drunken behavior on dates, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t treat women with disrespect?”
Now the latest damning accusation has emerged, prompting Platner to finally drop out, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who haven’t raped someone?”
So I was useless on this issue, because I was too busy backing away from this growing clusterfuck. Rebecca Watson has a more forthright response.
Let’s learn to more quickly recognize disqualifying characteristics in our candidates, OK? How about if we don’t make excuses for them anymore?
Suggested background reading: The Beans of Egypt, Maine
Yeah, I was dubious about Platner from the beginning and even said something online.
.1. There were some early Red Flags about the guy, that people were determined to ignore.
.2. The other issue is that Platner doesn’t have any sort of political track record.
He comes from nowhere and is running for a high office, US Senator from Maine.
Really, for a first job that is a big step.
He should have run for lower level local offices first and established himself as a known person, so we can make informed decisions.
These would be state and local positions such as state senator or representative for the state of Maine, etc..
He can still do this and even possibly redeem himself.
Doesn’t look like this is going to happen though.
Red Flags and no track record.
What could go wrong here?
Ask the Democratic party in Maine about that right now.
I think not making excuses for them is going to be hard. Many regular commenters here do. Mano Singham, to my disappointment, has. Mano, a number of years ago, was insistent that the “Bernie Bro” was a myth. Now, one of his complaints that I recall that I will grant him is the Bernie Bro was poorly defined. But I felt then and still do now is that many viewed someone who spouted progressive political views while treating women terribly as the primary indication of a Bernie Bro. Platner very much fits what I felt a Bernie Bro was. For people like myself, a big concern with the Bernie Bro was (and still is) that they would push voters away. Platner is pushing the worst-case scenario: A Bernie Bro candidate that causes the Republicans to win what should have been a winnable seat…though Mainers have cut Susan Collins way more slack than she deserves. And there wasn’t really a better Democratic candidate for the primary. Janet Mills? Really, Maine?
On that note, I fear that goes to the reason so many of us make excuses: We have so few progressive candidates that we want to push through every one we can because the alternative is often a boring establishment candidate. But we really must be vigilant with self-reflection because running shitty so-called progressive candidates makes us look bad as does letting shitty so-called progressives speak for us.
I fear that often as not a politician chooses their political party based on electability in their area. As we know, there was a time in the South that to win a seat of any type you had to run as a Democrat. Now it’s Republican. The “political party” system is largely a joke about collective delusions and fund raising.
Another high school level jarhead, trained thug, jacked up macho man.
And we expect him to sit down to tea and crumpets?
But, I digress. The Democratic Party in Texas is even worse. They gave us Troy Nehls, my rep, and will give us his twin knuckle-dragging bohunk brother, Trevor, in November.
Would you like to borrow our very own Count Binface – the most popular political candidate in the UK right now?
Cartomancer @6
Count Binface looks very good compared to some other candidates. He is even capable of improvising eloquent answers to unexpected questions.
Unfortunately, the presidency require American citizenship from birth -ruling out interstellar immigrants- but there is no rule about givernors or mayors. And supreme court justices may not even need to be lawyers as long as they have a support from the majority.
I suspect that a lot of prominent “progressives” saw his misogyny as a positive trait. The ones you named whose names are familiar to me are all men, and I suspect fairly “alpha male” types (cf. Dawkins.) Misogyny is still popular and valued in “bro” circles.
Unfortunately, I doubt that the Platner debacle will make overt misogyny any less salonfähig. So much of USAan politics is still about “who has the bigger dick.”
@8 Allison wrote: ‘a lot of prominent “progressives” saw his misogyny as a positive trait.’
I reply: you cite ‘all men’ and ‘Dawkins’ (who is NOT a progressive). I am sorry your viewpoint is so biased and inaccurate. I know AOC, Ihlan Omar, Jamie Raskin and so many others, including the men and women of our organization, who are true progressives have no such deluded views.
First, there are so many credible accusations and the magat-in-chief running the country is a convicted molester, so, I am compelled and do believe the women who were raped and abused. Such evil behavior cannot be tolerated.
Second, I am concerned that, in this world of people taking advantage of every opportunity for themselves, there likely is a small percentage, I/we don’t know how tiny, that claim rape falsely.
Third, this has, in so many cases, become a nation ruled by gossip and innuendo, not by swift, honest justice by due process. This makes it impossible to separate the phony ‘they weaponized their car’ claims by ice, the horrid distortions of political ads and the tens of thousands of outright LIES by tRUMP from legitimate crimes.
Fourth, was Al Franken ever actually tried for his alleged abuse? I can’t find evidence of due process, only conviction by social media and news accusations. He may be an abuser. The problem is I/we don’t know because I can find no information that there was ever due process proving or disproving the claims. And the ‘mainslime media’ has never provided any substantive information to us.
It appears that Platner may have recently acquired some admirable viewpoints. But, it is obvious that he carries way to much terrible baggage to be an appropriate candidate to withstand the barrage of bullshit of the political arena of today.
It is obvious that the Disgusting Non-accountable Corruption (DNC) is (to use appropriate lyrics) a ‘dead skunk in the middle of the road’. They are corporate whores who just amass wealth, wield power ineffectually and do nothing positive. The progressives have, in almost every case, proven to be honest and decent and supportive of people and not of predatory crapitallist corporations.
Thus, this nation, with a few notable exceptions, is ruled by ill-gotten wealth, shouted lies, hate and compliant ignorance, and has become an even greater FARCE.
Both “Platner is a scumbag” and “the Times published a tabloid-quality hit piece” are probably true. The problem is deciding which is more important.
I have to come down on the side of being happy that Platner is now out of the race, not only because he’s a horrible person, but also because there’s no reason to think that, as a Senator, he’d actually do what he campaigned on.
By the way, has anybody heard a suggestion that maybe neolib Dems were also interested in killing a progressive campaign? Let’s see whom the “party” choses to replace him.
Is the party unable to run a better field of candidates? With the death-grip Zionists have on the Democratic Party, apparently not. So, predictably, you have a nominally antizionist serial rapist running against a genocide-enabling warmonger and asking me who I think the lesser evil is (hint: it’s not the genocide enabler).
Don’t blame your constituents for responding appropriately after telling them “vote for the lesser evil”, “Hold your nose and vote X”, and “vote X no matter who”.
Rebecca Solnit, linked in the Infinite Thread
I watched Rebecca Watson’s full video, and as usual, she seems 100% correct to me. She obviously had better info on Graham Platner than I did (I didn’t know about his work with the successor to Blackwater, for example), but that of course is a result of my own preference for getting info mostly from sources that confirm my biases. I’m glad to say that unlike the leftists at whom her video is directed, I was not inclined to dismiss the allegations that appeared in the Times article. What I feel has been absent from the discussion of Platner’s fall are the voices of those of us who supported him with (relatively) open eyes precisely BECAUSE we want to believe that young men who hold horrible views and have done bad things are not beyond redemption. My Platner daydreams were of him becoming a good progressive senator and showing a path for other young men who have dabbled in Nazism and misogyny to leave that shit behind them. Before Platner, I was sure those guys were a lost cause. During Platner, I had some hope that we might reach some of them. Now? It’s looking like they’re a lost cause again, which is a shame because there are an awful lot of them.
clsi @14:
I collected some reactions in the Infinite Thread to Platner’s Chris Hayes interview last month circa the prior allegations.
Max Kennerly (Lawyer): “His ‘record’ is: prep boy who wanted to kill people, became a mercenary to kill more, got a Nazi tattoo, spent time abusing women and posting misogyny, then ran for Senate. When did he ‘transform’?”
Anjali Dayal:
Andrea LaFlamme (write-in candidate competing with Platner):
* IIRC LaFlamme posted in a reply somewhere that she’d been struck with an illness that disrupted her schedule to gather signatures, hence being a write-in.
[meta]
shermanj:
@8 Allison wrote: ‘a lot of prominent “progressives” saw his misogyny as a positive trait.’
I reply: you cite ‘all men’ and ‘Dawkins’ (who is NOT a progressive).
I think you got that wrong by conflating two clauses, when Allison actually wrote: “I suspect that a lot of prominent “progressives” saw his misogyny as a positive trait. [1] The ones you named whose names are familiar to me are all men [2]”.
Right? Many do and the names she personally recognised are all men is the claim at hand, not that all men are misogynistic.
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Me, I reckon this sort of thing is hardly new, it’s just that in this age it’s much easier to access past info about candidates.
From RawStory
https://www.rawstory.com/graham-platner-2677189006/
Political consultant Micah Erfan raised a figurative eyebrow at Trump’s personal response to the news, questioning the legitimacy of the claims against Platner.
“Trump now likes Graham Platner more after hearing about the rape allegations against him,” he wrote. “You can’t make this up.”
CompulsoryAccount7746 @ 15:
All good points. Once again, I’m guilty of hearing what I wanted to hear, my one consolation being that I have no significant platform to share my thoughts, and I don’t even have a vote in Maine (I’d like to think I would have done more thorough research if I had either followers to influence or a vote). As for Platner’s “transformation,” I heard him attribute it to therapy, which is exactly what I wanted to hear, so I went with it.
clsi,
All hearsay and opinion.
Which, to CA7746’s credit, was made explicit: ‘reactions’.
(How’s your epistemology going? Nothing wrong with your mea culpas)
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And not just speculative: I note, for example, that Anjali’s claim that is purely speculative.
Short of actual serious brain damage or other causes, even drunkards know what they do. Fact.
What happens is they become uninhibited, not clueless.
(The less said about the adduction of Andrea LaFlamme’s self-service, the better)
Seems to me that misogyny – like racism – is very deeply embedded in USoA culture and beliefs.
Unless candidates are actively feminist and therefore anti-misogynist – and too few are -yes. Non-misogynist candidates are and will remain xtremely hard to find. Because, again, misogyny is commonplace and normalised within USoAite society.
Of course, the USoA is NOT alone in this & Oz too has this issue as proven by the treatement dealt to Julia Gillard among others.
It is a cultural and society wide issue and one I had thought was getting better once but things seem to have gone so far backwards especially with the rise of Trump and the take-over of the US by fascism. Which is also pushing misogynist beliefs and ideology globe~wide. Murdoch, Musk,Thiel and other billionaires have a fuck of a lot to answer for here.
Well, no. Not alone on that particular axis.
But then, she was an open atheist while Prime Minister.
Gotta consider the intersectional reality; she was irreligious, not just a childless and unmarried woman.
@ Morales
The reference was to memory loss, a well attested symptom of inebriation.
Lol. Are you seriously suggesting Gillard faced misogyny because she didn’t believe in god? (Unremarkable in Australia. Remarkable at the time for a prime minister to say openly because of convention, but a view widely shared.)
@ Morales, my epistemology is lazy as ever, but if Lucy ever offers me this particular football again, I’ll epistemologize it more carefully before the run-up to kick it.
Ahem. I am told Platner will step down. Does that mean whoever was second in the primary automatically gets the slot? Or will the Maine Republican senator who is supporting a different serial rapist get to run unopposed?
.
BTW Platner has enough luggage for the allegations to be credible. But I have not forgotten the “swiftboating” of Kelly.
.
Hell, I even remember when Nixon’s ‘Ratfuckers’ successfully tainted wossname Democratic presidential wannabee as unduitable, because he had shed tears in public after his wife had been subjected to a campaign of slurs. The candidacy 1972 went to George McGovern instead, with known result.
.
My point is, everybody must be on lookout for desinformation campaigns, especially as the electorate seems even dumber today than they were 54 years ago.
robro@4 that’s supposedly why Tulsi Gabbard ran as a Democrat. It’s almost impossible for a Republican to get elected in Hawaii these days.
An unfortunate fact of the current climate is that many people are happy to excuse sexual misconduct when it suits their political purposes. Rebecca Watson, for example, has excused the rapes committed during the Oct. 7 attacks.
I disbelieve you; what i might believe is that you have perceived her as so doing.
(More likely you are outright lying)
sinuousrills @26:
Rebecca Watson – Feminists vs Israeli Disinformation: the New York Times’ false rape narrative (2024, 14:17)
CA7746, well, yes. She disputed a hit piece, not excused rapes. Quite topic-specific.
Kinda what I do: stand for truth.
I myself would have quoted this bit:
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Claiming she thereby ‘excused the rapes’ is well beyond warrant.
Basically, an attempted hit piece that fails miserably on the merits.