- “We’ve seen Democrats circle the wagons around scandal-plagued figures before. But usually, those figures had done a thing or two to inspire or “earn” that reflexive loyalty and shameless excuse-making.”
- “Anybody with eyes could see that this guy, at minimum, had been a world-class creep. The explanation from him, his wife, and his campaign was that he was a changed man.And even if he was a changed man . . . what made this very recently reformed reprobate the kind of guy you’d want to have as a U.S. Senator?”
- “He had never run anything; his harbormaster job was, in his own words, a “very, very part-time job.”…He hadn’t helped get any bills passed, he hadn’t led the fight for any particular cause. He was just some guy who ranted about how “Senator Collins is bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu,” claimed John Fetterman was a “stooge for AIPAC,” and who accused Israel of committing genocide. … he sure made clear that he believed that Israel was evil and controlled Washington. Something of an odd strategy if you want to dispel suspicions that you ever had any youthful dalliances with neo-Naziism.”
- “To believe Platner, you have to believe that he accidentally got a Nazi tattoo, and didn’t notice for 18 years, and his political director made up a story about him warning her of a controversial tattoo, and no one he sexted on Kik was underage, and his exes are making up the worst possible accusations about him. You must believe that Platner, who’s already been caught in several lies about his past, is telling the truth, and that a whole bunch of people who knew him well for many years are telling vicious lies about him, at great risk to their reputations.”
- “If you had found that you had accidentally gotten a tattoo of the Nazi regime over your heart, how many traffic laws would you break getting to a place to get it removed? Or would you just grab a steak knife and try to cut it off immediately?”
- “His whole campaign was built on his working-class image, but he attended an elite boarding school in Connecticut. The only customer of his oyster business was his mother’s restaurant. He bought his house with a $200,000 loan from his father, not with “support from the VA” as he had claimed. On the campaign trail, Platner kept insisting that Susan Collins had sent him to Iraq, but she voted to authorize military force in 2002 and he enlisted in 2004 and volunteered for three tours over eight years.”
- “He blamed his choice of tattoo on the culture of the U.S. military. His Reddit comments about rape victims and black people would have gotten any other figure instantly canceled a few years ago. He called himself a communist, in the long-ago era of . . . 2021.”
The point is not to kick the dead horse of Platner’s quest to be Maine’s next Senator. I figured out he was a disgusting candidate on May 1, around the time Michelle Goldberg was singing his praises. The point is to ask the crucial question, “What kind of people would support someone like this to be in the U.S. Senate, and why would anyone, on any end of the political spectrum, trust people like that?”
Over at PJ Media, Rick Moran has a similar query: “How in the name of all that is good and holy did the Democrats ever think Platner was a viable candidate?” He notes, “That same question was asked not too long ago, when Joe Biden was readying his re-election campaign. And the Democrats have yet to answer it.” His answer: “Democrats are so contemptuous of the intelligence and judgment of the American people that they believe voters will accept any flaws in a candidate as long as they promise enough free stuff and paint Republicans as Hitler clones.”
I believe the frightening lesson of the Platner Affair is worse than that. I believe it indicates that the current Democratic Party has no core principles at all except its lust for power.
Ethics Alarms 
Really not much else to say except where the hell are the “me too” believers?
It appears that those who have withdrawn support have not rediscovered their principles – Platner’s poll numbers have not fared well of late. They still don’t care that he’s scum, only that they need a candidate who has a chance. So discouraging and frightening because the party of no scruples is very good at marketing and messaging.
I’d say the explanation for Platner is contained in the Steven King post earlier today. Democrats don’t care about character. As a matter of fact, they’re more than willing to throw scumbags into races because they are contemptuous of anyone who won’t vote Democrat straight down the line.
None of these people were fooled by Platner; they didn’t care! They might as well have said, “Sure, maybe he’s a creep, but he’s our creep, so live with it, assholes!” I find it ironic that they foisted John Fetterman on the Pennsylvania electorate and he turned out to be a fairly solid guy! Probably much to their chagrin insofar as he doesn’t seem to take orders and toe the line.,
“I find it ironic that they foisted John Fetterman on the Pennsylvania electorate and he turned out to be a fairly solid guy!”
I’m certain at least one hyper-partisan, silo-minded 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality LEFTY would like a MULLIGAN….
PWS
Worse than clinically depressed, it turns out Fetterman’s rational! Hilarious.
Ummm… Geraghty writes for National Review and The Washington Post. The quotes cited were from National Review. I’m pretty sure he’s never written for New Republic, although if they carry his work, more power to ’em…
I’m pretty sure I’ve made that mistake before. “NR” You’re lucky I didn’t write “Norwegian Reporter.”
Fixed. %$%#@!
HOWEVER, to be fair, the only place I made that mistake was in a link that went to..The National Review.
“Democrats are so contemptuous of the intelligence and judgment of the American people that they believe voters will accept any flaws in a candidate as long as they promise enough free stuff and paint Republicans as Hitler clones.” He’s not wrong, 75,017,613 votes for Harris in 2024 prove that.
It’s not that.
People have principles, and you aren’t going to get people to turn their backs on things they hold deeply because the candidate is a boor. I think we’re beyond that now. This isn’t only a Democrat thing… Look at exhibit T.
I don’t think I’ve been anything other than candid in my criticism of Trump, particularly in his second term. I think a lot of things he’s doing right now are detrimental to both American interests and the world, and for every objectively good thing that he’s doing, there’s probably three or four stupid offsets. It’s frustrating to me that’s happening, because I don’t see a reason why we couldn’t have all those good things and not have to deal with all the bullshit, except that Trump is a particular kind of savant and we’re rapidly approaching the reality where he probably could shoot the guy on 5th without a whole lot of blowback, if we aren’t already there.
All that said, when we get to the ballot box in a two-party system, the reality is that you have to make choices and compromises. I would have happily voted for Trump the first time… then, honestly, between how fraught Trump’s first term was and how Biden really was campaigning as a moderate unity candidate, I probably would have voted for Biden, and then, in Trump’s third election, between how awful Biden was and the strictly worse candidate Harris was, I’d probably have voted for Trump again… Not because I thought Trump was good, but because Harris was (and is) so damn awful.
This is why primaries matter… Once we get to the general, we’re functionally locked in. At least in the primaries, we could theoretically weed out the crazy and ineffective. Although… Recently, the democrats have been doing yeomen’s work of putting forward insanity. I’m going to browse through the last week or so that I’ve missed, but have we talked about Darializa Avila Chevalier yet?
He notes, “That same question was asked not too long ago, when Joe Biden was readying his re-election campaign. And the Democrats have yet to answer it.” His answer: “Democrats are so contemptuous of the intelligence and judgment of the American people that they believe voters will accept any flaws in a candidate as long as they promise enough free stuff and paint Republicans as Hitler clones.”
My take is a little different than this. I don’t think that Democrats value individualism, even a little bit: They believe, to some extent, that everyone is exactly the same. That anyone could do any job, that we are all just interchangeable cogs in an extraordinarily large machine. Everyone could be a doctor if only they had a chance to go to med school, anyone could run a business if only they got tapped as a CEO, anyone can be a senator so long as there’s a D after their name. This is explicit when they’re talking about diversity hires: So long as anyone could be a doctor, CEO, or senator, why not people that bring diversity to a job?
And I think because of that, because of the rejection of meritocracy, because frankly… A lot of the people they’d like to put forward as viable candidates probably have checkered pasts, they’ve let their standards on vetting go, because frankly… They don’t want to know. It would get in the way of the mission of putting in cogs that think like them. But there’s a difference between someone who had a couple of unfortunate decisions 20 years ago when they were a kid and the reams and reams of recent information and alarm bells going off in a case like Platner.
Like I said here a while back: Was there no one the DSA thought people would vote for that didn’t have Nazi tattoos on his chest and a number of recent sexual assault charges? Did no one else left of Collins want to be a senator in the state?
Let’s be real: There probably was. They put him up anyway. Every endorsement should follow these morons around like a brand.
They believe, to some extent, that everyone is exactly the same. That anyone could do any job, that we are all just interchangeable cogs in an extraordinarily large machine. Everyone could be a doctor if only they had a chance to go to med school, anyone could run a business if only they got tapped as a CEO, anyone can be a senator so long as there’s a D after their name.
I’m not sure what the word for that observation is. Trenchant? Profound?
Maybe Calculus or even Trigonometry should be required of all high school students. Make them sit through a couple of weeks of classes and take an exam and flunk it. Maybe make all college students take Organic Chemistry. Knowing what you don’t know and what you’re incapable of is an essential life skill. And you’re right, a deficit on this front has become a feature of public policy.