What really got me was the repeated assertion that while you or I might not like his behavior, working class people like a guy who is a little rough around the edges. Where does this belief that working class people have lower moral standards come from? Why should we assume this is the case?
Well before then. It started with the "beer test".
Also, at the personality trait level, Hillybilly Elegy was correct. Lower SES (education and occupation status especially) is correlated with lower conscientiousness (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10256837/), which correlates with these kinds of behaviors.
Because they voted for Trump all 3 times, as well as all the other Republicans with similar issues, and many of them were the very working class types who voted for Bill Clinton 30 years ago. Remember that these scandals hardly affected Bill’s popularity?
We’ve been told repeatedly that the reason why Trump wins and we lose is because we’re the party of Lisa Simpson and they’re the party of Bart and Homer, and there’s more of them than us. That Dems lose because they’re widely perceived as less authentic than the GOP. And authenticity means saying what’s on your mind even if it’s ugly and oftentimes having a checkered past. Patterns in voting actually do back this up - the candidate that can speak plainly and more working-class coded regardless of party (B. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump all had this in common relative to their opponents) tends to win if the race is competitive, and that often outweighs a squeaky-clean past if they look like they came from a well-off white collar background and talks like that. Remember the “beer test”? You don't win the beer test by being an uptight prig who cares too much about pesky things like decorum, propriety, and living life in a moral way.
The reason people don't like Lisa Simpson types is because they simply don't buy that gas stoves or steak or deporting immigrants are immoral in the first place. It's a view we can accommodate or not. If you do accommodate voters' views better than your opponent, you can get away with a lot. But nominating people who share the views of college educated progressives but are also scumbags is just solving the wrong problem.
PS: "Regular guy you want to get a beer with" is not how I remember people describing Obama at the time!
Part of passing the beer test is not moralizing "normal" choices. A huge part in fact. Anyone who even suggests banning gas stoves or steak or gas-powered cars or whatever is someone whose moral principles are so high-minded that they're instantly unrelatable to most people and would fail the beer test on that alone. A scumbag who moralizes doesn't pass the beer test. A scumbag who doesn't moralize does, and that is the #1 secret to Trump's success. He's a scumbag who doesn't pretend that he's not a scumbag, and his voters don't feel that he's above them.
Re: Obama, notice I said "relative to their opponents". Obama passed the beer test with flying colors *relative to Romney*, and as for McCain, 2008 was a special case which any Dem would've won because of the economic crash.
I don't know...I think Obama could win both the beer and the decency test. It is possible to have it both ways. And not everyone who is nerdy or like Hermione Granger, is so "upright" they must sound or look like an uptight prig. I think your point is well taken--and this is a real element of populist politics--and democracy. This comes through in the APOLOGY Socrates hit the Athenian people with long ago. Socrates was put to death--but I don't believe the lesson is that we simply are unsuited to a democratic life We need to watch for it--but it is not definitive.
Having grown up in the rural working class (in Appalachia), it's not - very much not - "lower moral standards." It's different/lower decorum standards, and a culture that's more tolerant of physical combat (but less tolerant of "scheming").
So someone who is perfectly respectable, and would always address women older than him as Missus, might very well have no problem telling a crude sexual joke to a group of men.
For a good example in national Democratic politics, think Raphael Warnock. I'd be incredibly unsurprised to learn that he had at some point told jokes where a gay man was the butt of the joke, or punched someone when he was in high school for being too handsy with his girlfriend.
Yes - I'm not defending Platner, I'm trying to articulate usefully where the working-class/ white-collar distinction is - which is much more decorum than morality.
To expand on the concept, being working class means I look at Platner's behavior and call him a shitbag. Even before the sexual assault allegations, I looked at the reddit posts and the rampant infidelity, and said he has the self discipline of a methed-out squirrel. If someone brings up the PTSD, I'll happily point out that I know several people who've shot people, several diagnosed with PTSD, some of whom have come close to suicide, and reject that as a cheap excuse.
It was lower, though. Platner's behavior was definitely of a lower standard. And a bunch of Ivy Leaguers decided the working class must be into it, not because they have any insight (lol), but *because* it was lower. That's what they think of the working class. It's an epidemic on the left -- empathy for marginalized groups that is rooted in condescension.
But they aren’t wrong to think that. The white working class voted for Trump 3 times. The last time they voted Democrat in the majority was for Bill Clinton, who just so happened to also be an impeached rapist. It’s probably not the chief reason why they vote for them - it’s the cultural moderation/conservatism. But they do not give a rat’s ass if their guy is a rapist if he’s “just like them” otherwise, by which I mean he can convincingly play the part of being from their culture, sharing their same prejudices, their same grievances, etc. The reason why Trump did well with them is the same reason why Bill Clinton did well with them 30 years ago. They’re guys the guys like to have a beer with. And typically the ones who pass the beer test tend to be the ones with entertaining stories, which require a “past” so to speak.
Well - it's I think a habit of a certain sociological profile - right now Left but a lot of Colege Educated Left/Progressive has strong strains of a secularised and lefty-cuturalised neo-Victorianism, doing good by the poor benighted Poors... who also have totally wrong and icky values and need to be uplifted to think correctly like us correct-thinking people. Heavily superiority-to-condenscenation inflected concern.
Because people see behavior that would be considered too coarse for their tastes and rather than asking “what moral stance have these people reasoned such that they don’t follow the exact same platform of rules as I do”, they’ve just assumed that “not following the exact same platform of rules as I do” = “idk, working class people tell lots of dick jokes and and say ‘retard’ cuz they’re neanderthals and/or jackasses”.
I always felt he was what an Ivy League coastal progressive thought would appeal to white working class people. Then after seeing the people who recruited him I think that belief was vindicated. LOL
My hunch is that it's because it is one of the few explanations more intense prog or left types feel comfortable with offering for bad behavior in the first place
A month or so ago, I thought I would hold my nose and vote for Platner if I lived in Maine. That was a mistake. Using immoral means to achieve a moral end (a check on MAGA).
I feel the same way about a candidate who refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. That is an antisemitic and immoral position. A sinister position different than criticism of the Israeli govt. and wanting to use US aid and arm sales as a way of influencing behavior.
Mr. Singh, "'I feel the same way' meaning that it is for me a moral mistake to back such a candidate," is not to say "I feel the same way about these two things"; it means, "I feel the same way about the decision to back such candidates."
Completely understand that. The point I am making is that one should not feel the same way about backing a candidate who refuses to say Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state and backing a candidate who is a rapist. The latter is a despicable crime. The former is an opinion, albeit a controversial one.
Both are clarifying no support/no vote zones for me.
And I don’t see questioning the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state as a mere opinion. I see it as a threat to Jewish survival in both Israel and in the diaspora.So, as a Jew, I take it personally and seriously.
pretty sure you would classify as "despicable" and not merely "controversial" if a candidate were to claim other peoples/nations do not have the right to exist or to self determination, such as if a white supremacist declared china or pakistan or ethiopia are not legitimate countries, may not maintain their borders, and that their people should be under the authority of a different regime. by directing this view only at jewish people, you are making a bigoted statement. even if you set aside religion, by directing it solely at israelis, you are making a bigoted statement on the basis of national origin/nationality. your view of israel is nothing more than intellectual whitewashing of bigotry and has nothing to do with criticism of the current israeli govt.
and on the main point of platner and character, it is no surprise that a bigoted and hateful person like him also commits acts of violence.
You literally said "I thought I would hold my nose and vote for Platner if I lived in Maine" and that it would've been "using immoral means to achieve a moral end (a check on MAGA).". That is the exact logic behind Republicans voting for Trump. That you no longer think this is to your credit, but honestly, did you not think he'd have a rape allegation from the perspective of a month ago, when it was already known that he was a misogynist who posted on Reddit about rape and stories were coming out about violent behavior towards women?
Anyone who says this has no moral standing over any Republican who endorsed or supported Trump prior to the Access Hollywood tape (before which it was already morally reprehensible to support him) and then went ducking for cover afterwards (most of whom came back to him once he refused to drop out).
Platner was always a very bad nominee, and that should have been clear before any of his scandalous acts were brought to light. To see why he was a bad nominee, you don't even need to consider his weaknesses. Just consider his strengths:
1) He has a certain set of political positions. Maybe you like them. Fine. But Maine has 1.4 million people, and you can find many who share those positions.
2) He is a veteran.
3) He is handsome—and handsome in a gruff sort of way that conveys “authenticity” to some.
As far as I can tell, that’s it. He has absolutely no political experience. There’s no evidence that he has ever even thought deeply about a political matter, let alone worked on one.
He was nominated in no small part because of point 3. In this sense, he is a very Trumpian nominee: chosen not for his intellect or his experience, but because he looks good on TV.
Without the tattoo, the Reddit posts, the sexual history, he might have been an electable nominee—but still a very bad nominee. When did it become acceptable for Democrats to nominate this sort of candidate for the U.S. Senate?
When the lesson that many on our side took from 2024 (and frankly 2016) was that we lost because we're the party of HR ladies, Lisa Simpson, priggish schoolmarms, etc. That lesson is still correct, btw. But then it becomes a delicate balancing act between nominating candidates who aren't moral scolds, can speak in an "authentic" working-class manner, that voters "can have a beer with", and don't look like they're the type who will interfere with the working-class way of life while also not behaving in objectively awful ways. Candidates that can thread the needle are gold, but they're rare because often there is a tradeoff. The same personality traits that predict for "authenticity" also predict for bad behavior - chiefly poor emotional regulation and impulsivity. The personality traits that predict being an "HR lady/Lisa Simpson/priggish schoolmarm" - very high conscientiousness and strong emotional regulation, as well as expecting others to be held to these standards - are widely seen as "inauthentic" and are thus disliked because overly proper behavior and expecting others to abide by that is looked upon with suspicion by most people who are not so squeaky-clean.
There may be many people in Maine that believe similar things, but unfortunately, they haven't decided to run. We are resigned to select from those that do. Hopefully Platner's self-destruction inspires more to run! But leftists are not exactly spoiled for options (and Democrats broadly are not much better off)
Platner didn't decide to run out of nowhere. He was actively recruited, and he wouldn't have run otherwise. Save some blame for those recruiters, who could easily have found a better candidate. (For a little more on the recruiters, see https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platner-maine-senate-cc7fb61f.)
One thing that deserved more attention than it got is when Fifield quoted Platner as saying that if someone broke into the house, he'd rape them to establish dominance.
The article, by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer, has five paragraphs on Platner talking about rape. "Asked about those remarks, a Platner campaign official did not dispute them. A friend who knew Mr. Platner and Ms. Fifield during that period said the comments sounded out of character."
The article also ends with this now-amazing line from Platner: '“I have a lot of ex-girlfriends,” he told voters at a town hall in late April. “They’re all still my friends.”'
Not supporting Platner here (he is finished). Just pointing out that FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton, Gore (and Eisenhower) cheated on their wives. How do you square that circle? Did they all have such bad judgement that they couldn't be President?
Most of those guys had done things in their lives to prove they were competent and capable in important ways *before* seeking top positions in the US government. It's not the case that anyone who cheats is incapable of performing well; it's that (prior to yesterday anyway) Platner had barely anything else to point to. Honorable military service counts for a fair amount with me, but I served myself so I'm well-aware of how many dumbasses serve well but have atrocious judgment.
I think Jerusalem's point is that one transgression is not necessarily damning, but a pattern of behavior is. All these cheaters lied, and that is bad - but Platner also has a nazi tattoo, a history of incendiary and stupid comments, and a tendency towards physical abuse.
With all of this well-established before this week, nobody should be at all surprised by a credible rape accusation against Platner. I think everyone would be *more* surprised by a credible rape accusation against FDR/JFK/LBJ/Clinton/Gore.
These replies are all reasonable but the point is that JD didn't address any of these in her piece. We all agree that serial killers should not be elected and give a pass to those who shoplifted a Twinky in their teens. Exactly how do we think about everyone in between? The problem for the D's is that they have an issue about both morality and policies and can't figure out how to square those. R's only have issues on policies, apparently. D's can't seem to understand how that works.
JD's point seems to be that she ascribes poor morality to poor judgment and that that kind of bad judgement extents to policy. I think that both of those assertions are wrong.
Also, FWIW, Clinton's bad behavior was well known to anyone paying attention prior to his election. I thought he was the left's Nixon. Tricky Dick but of a different kind. I voted for him anyway.
I don't think that's a fair characterization of this piece. It is true that Jerusalem connects poor morality with poor judgment, but she doesn't say "and that leads to support of bad policies”. Hers is a deeper criticism that poor morality and judgment makes someone untrustworthy around power.
Trump is a great example of this: policy-wise, he’s mostly more moderate than Romney was in 2012. But he also has terrible morality and judgment, which leads to reckless abuses and his attempts to overturn the entire constitutional system to satisfy his animal desires for power.
Platner is in the same boat as Trump. Unlike many of the least trustworthy philanderer presidents - yes, Clinton included - he has shown a pattern of poor judgment across his life and throughout time. It is a matter of degrees, and Jerusalem’s piece is clearly delineating a set of unacceptable behaviors that are worse than twinky-stealing but not as bad as repeated murder.
"Trump is a great example of this: policy-wise, he’s mostly more moderate than Romney was in 2012. But he also has terrible morality and judgment, which leads to reckless abuses and his attempts to overturn the entire constitutional system to satisfy his animal desires for power."
1000 times this.
Character does matter, judgement does matter. I'm a Republican so I often have some sympathy for some of Trump's stated policy goals. But he also messes them up because that's who he is. A conman that conned his way into the presidency.
I agree that poor judgement is disqualifying. As a corollary, I also agree that a track record of success is important (hence my disappointment that Platner got as far as he did. And obviously Trump is a series of cheats / fraud (and racism/ sexism and sociopathy) which is also disqualifying). I just don't think this is easily connected to things like cheating on your wife. I think you can have excellent judgement in politics (or other professional activities) and be lousy in your personal life (as Milan says above). Many such examples.
I think that except for Clinton these are all post-election revelations (and I don't think Gore should be listed). Focusing on Clinton clarifies the question, but I don't think rumors about his pre-1992 conduct were widely known in '92, and by 1996 he'd demonstrated that he could handle the job.
Focusing on Clinton alone is helpful in framing the issue. He not only cheated on his wife, he did so while in office and lied about it (that was the basis of his impeachment and disbarment), bringing his ethical failure even further forward in time. But he was an effective president.
The salience of this sort of quandary has to be seen against two questions: what's at stake in letting the opposing candidate (or party) win, and, is there an alternative path to victory? Try the thought experiment of making the opposing candidate Hitler -- the morally flawed candidate gets a pass on just about anything personal if there's no way to run anyone else. If there's an alternative -- as there still is in Platner's case and as there was from the outset as the lies and uncertainties multiplied -- then cutting your losses and switching candidates seems like an obviously prudent decision. (It parallels the 2024 Democratic choice, though the issue was different.) Although I think Clinton's second term was generally successful, I think in the long term it would have been better for Democrats if he'd been forced to resign and Gore had replaced him. It would, I think, have inoculated more voters against someone like Trump. (But if Gore had been incapacitated and Gingrich were next in line I'm not sure that calculus holds.)
I for one supported Clinton's impeachment at the time and thought Dems should have voted to remove him, even though it was clear that the impeachers were acting in bad faith for partisan reasons and were total hypocrites about bad behavior by their own guys.
This was not because Clinton was a philanderer: it was because he took sexual advantage of someone who reported to him professionally, and then lied about it in court under oath. No sane corporate board would let a CEO remain in his post after doing those things, and the standard for Presidents (and Senators for that matter) should be no lower.
I think that take has aged well, as the very online kids say. For one thing, Dems giving Clinton a pass provided a permission structure for Reps to give Trump a pass. Sometimes slopes really are slippery.
There's an argument to be made that had Hillary divorced Bill, Hillary would've won 2016. Trump shook off the Access Hollywood tape by whatabouting to Bill Clinton, and it was entirely correct. The Dems would've absolutely covered for their own's sexual misconduct as they did with Clinton and all the way up to after 2016. Hillary was a part of that and was complicit. This is what Hillary defenders miss when they say that "Bill wasn't running for president" as a deflection against Trump's attacks. Yes, Hillary wasn't the one who raped and sexually coerced women, but she was married to someone who did, refused to divorce him, and defended him publicly as well as tried to discredit his accusers. It leveled the playing field between the two and turned it into a "both sides suck" election, which typically favors the change candidate.
Yeah I don't live in Maine and so never needed to hold a strong position, but it's very difficult for me to hold that a cheater has such bad moral judgement that we should always assume they have worse skeletons in their closet
The point is that he wasn’t *just* a cheater in our knowledge last week - he was a cheater with a history of disparaging social media accounts and deeply questionable choices of tattoo, with maybe some impropriety in relationships beyond cheating.
I think this piece ignoring ideology is giving short shrift to the pro Platner position. To the extent I supported Platner, it was because he had good policy positions - far better than any of the other Republican or Democratic candidates he might have gone up against. Does that judgement not matter? I don't like reading tea leaves of bad judgement as "this person probably did much worse than I know about" when we're talking about national candidates with, yes, power. No, I wouldn't vote for someone who is clearly a rapist for M4A. But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
I think it's a mistake to assume everyone who supported Platner merely rationalized away every objection because he was "on their team". We saw people cynically using these instances of bad judgement (before we knew about the rape) against him not because they're so morally consistent, but because he wasn't on their team. Matt Stoller can be right about the role of Israel policy while Platner is still a rapist. Both can, and seem to be, true.
I do not understand why the Left embraced Platner so strongly. In the interviews I’ve seen, Platner comes off as someone who has not thought deeply about most issues of public policy. He has basically no track record of political activism or engagement. I understand he’s supported many Left positions during his Senate campaign, but I think it’s hard to guess what he would do over the course of a senate term. Maybe he would be like Bernie Sanders, but maybe he would go off the rails like John Fetterman. To me, his personal life and political approach together form a picture of someone who’s generally a dumbass. A dumbass I would’ve voted for before the rape allegations, but a dumbass nonetheless.
I can agree with most of that, with the caveat that I think the left is too afraid of "another Fetterman" as though Fetterman's personality didn't deeply change as the result of a stroke, something we can't plan for. I'm happy to vote for dumbasses who have good policy positions because there are vanishingly few good candidates in either party and the Left is in a "beggars can't be choosers" situation. We can still have standards but given how many other dumbasses serve in Congress right now, it's just not disqualifying.
Even pre-rape allegation, he wasn't someone with a Nazi tattoo OR a history of infidelity OR a history of troubling comments on women OR at least one ex willing to go on the record and say he was physically abusive; he was someone with all of those things. That's why it's a pattern. OK, fine, one might say, he has bad morals, but what about the rest of his judgment? He has no particularly shiny record to point to. Where is the success in his life which shows that he has his shit together? Where is the business he's built, or the education, or the work he has done faithfully for years, or anything like that? He just seems like kind of a fuckup douchebag who's a bit of a failure-to-launch.
The fact that he mouths some platitudes about M4A seems like pretty weak evidence that he'll be even basically effective.
> But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
Isn't the entire point of the article pointing out the problem in this reasoning? Platner supporters liked his policies and decided to ignore the Nazi tattoo, history of bad comments, and infidelity that summed to strong evidence that he was a generally bad person. All of this evidence was ignored because he's in favor of M4A and anti-Israel so it's a worthwhile trade. The mistake was in failing to understand that 1) bad character suggests there may be worse things in his past, especially because his political history so far has mostly been a string of scandals about said past, 2) bad character leads to bad policy.
> I think it's a mistake to assume everyone who supported Platner merely rationalized away every objection because he was "on their team". We saw people cynically using these instances of bad judgement (before we knew about the rape) against him not because they're so morally consistent, but because he wasn't on their team.
But you did rationalize it away! The second sentence here is you describing how you rationalized it away. Instead of considering whether someone with a Nazi tattoo was a suitable flagship candidate for a left-wing movement, you interpreted it as a manufactured attack by your political enemies that should be deflected.
At the end of the day it's the same mistake conservatives made in supporting Trump. They saw his long history of corrupt behavior and decided that it didn't matter as long as he was on their side. They brushed it off as unfair attacks because everyone in politics is corrupt and therefore why should you have to care if your guy is also corrupt? Then he became president and oh look, the corrupt person is doing corrupt things. Most politicians may have some non-zero level of suspicious behavior, but this one has vastly exceeded the background level of shadiness and has caused proportionately more damage.
The point of the article is that these consequences are predictable. That's why we keep people like this out of politics. When we fail to enforce this norm, we suffer for it.
At the end of the day it's the same mistake conservatives made in supporting Trump. They saw his long history of corrupt behavior and decided that it didn't matter as long as he was on their side
And I just disagree with most of what you say. "The Nazi tattoo, history of bad comments, and infidelity that summed to strong evidence that he was a generally bad person" is what I fundamentally disagree with. Not only are none of those disqualifying to me, they don't sum to anything more than their parts, and he denounced most of it to boot. This isn't like Trump being stridently corrupt and not thinking he's done anything wrong. I'm not going to just assume that someone has worse skeletons in their closet if what I have, in facts, is not disqualifying. A person can have made all those mistakes, and regretted them (as he seemed/seems to) and not turn out to have been a rapist, I just don't see some huge benefit to assuming they are.
But it did sum to more than its parts! He did not denounce his Nazi tattoo, he lied by claiming he didn't know what it was. Even leaving out the evidence Demsas gathered that he knew what it was before his campaign started, to not learn what your skull tattoo means after twenty years can only be a lie or an admission to remarkably poor knowledge about the world. A young marine getting a tattoo he didn't understand is excusable, that same man keeping that tattoo his whole life without any effort to have it removed or overwritten with something else is not.
As pointed out by Demsas, his disavowal of his past comments and actions is simply not believable. This is not digging up his past from decades ago, it's a repeated series of statements and physical attacks that span his adult life. People do change, but if someone with a known history of bad behavior running right up to the moment their political campaign began insists they've left it all behind, it isn't hard to notice that you shouldn't believe them.
You're pretty much exemplifying the problem here. The mental gymnastics and self delusion required to believe that Graham Platner had simply made mistakes blow my mind.
Your position seems similar to the position that Jerusalem Demsas was espousing herself five weeks ago: "I hope Graham Platner wins his election against Susan Collins because I think Democratic control of the Senate is the best path forward for shoring up our democracy."
> But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
What does this mean? Electing Nazis is what gets you *Naziism*. Which (I think we're all on the same page about this) is really bad! Worse than Susan Collins, worse than Trump.
Don't elect Nazis: It has actually turned out poorly.
I absolutely adored this piece, but perhaps my favorite dimension involved the emphasis on the intellectual dimensions of character - specifically, the motivated reasoning of convenience on the parts of both the perpetrator and his supporters.
Excellent debrief. May I never have to read about this guy again.
On the subject of judgement, however, I'd like to know more about the individuals/organizations who decided THIS was the guy who should represent Maine in the first place. More broadly: how do we (Democrats) stop running knuckleheads?
The bigger issue isn’t how to stop running knuckleheads. Knuckleheads will always run (see the California governor primary). The issue is how to get *good* candidates to run in *every* race, not just the ones that feel winnable (see Maine Gov vs Maine Sen).
“Judgment comes from marrying intuition, experience, and logic. Judgment is what helps you determine whether a piece of fruit will be ripe before you bite into it, what to say to a friend when their dog dies, and whether a man with a Nazi tattoo who cheats on his wife and makes offensive comments on anonymous accounts is likely to have other skeletons in his closet.”
It's true that some moral failures spring from bad practical reasoning, but alas, mistakes are not the cause of all immorality.
The historical record demonstrates that effective leadership and positive policy outcomes are only loosely correlated with personal morality or good judgement. LBJ is probably the most accessible example, since he's the closest to us, values-wise, but other figures show the same thing: Thomas Jefferson, Charles de Gaulle, etc.. Almost any serious work of history or biography will periodically appall the average reader of The Argument and refute the idea that, as another commenter put it "bad character leads to bad policy."
I'd even argue that in some respects, the opposite is true! Traits we recoil from can even be extremely valuable in politics, like intense interpersonal aggressive tendencies or (tactical, occasional) dishonesty. In a more speculative vein, personal failings seem to induce moral longing that can motivate politicians to do exceptionally positive things, perhaps as monumental acts of atonement.
None of this to say anyone should vote for a candidate they cannot stomach, just that we shouldn't confuse our personal moral intuitions with political judgements.
It's hard to do it justice: his biography is wild and compelling. But, in brief, he:
- Was corrupt. He certainly paid for his Senate seat and almost surely manipulated the FCC into regulatory decisions that turned the moribund radio station he bought with Lady Bird into a goldmine.
- Bullied and intimidated every person in his orbit. For example, he would demean subordinates (male and female) by forcing them to attend meetings in the bathroom while he shat.
- Kissed the assess he could not bully or threaten, until his lips bled.
I completely agree that Planter's long string of bad decisions over multiple decades should have disqualified him even before the the sexual assault allegation came out (in part because we could have inferred something like that was coming), especially the allegations of being a violent drunk.
But something this piece doesn't grapple with is where we draw the line, because I don't think it's morally right or politically strategic to rule out all candidates who have personal flaws or made bad decisions in their past. Few people have perfect histories, and now that millennials are old enough to run for office more of candidates' bad past decisions will be uncovered simply because millennials have been online for most of their lives. There are no doubt many great leaders who committed moral failings in their personal lives, and probably more than we will ever know about. In a democratic society, I'm uncomfortable with a level of moral strictness that would rule out most people from running for office.
I also don't think it would be strategically wise to rule out candidates who are "rough around the edges". A huge problem for Democrats is they are seen as inauthentic and the party of straight-A student boy and girl scouts. We've seen how such "straight-A student" candidates like Kamala Harris and Secretary Pete have struggled to win over working class voters in general elections and even primaries. Does this mean we should tolerate candidates who are violent drunks or have committed sexual assault? No, but it probably means accepting candidates who have imperfect pasts or who have said politically incorrect things at times.
I see that you've seen my comments on this topic. The Dems have a difficult needle to thread because of the issue we pointed out. There does seem to be a tradeoff in most cases in that in America outside of high-SES progressive enclaves, putting up a Lisa Simpson-type candidate is DOA. They're so accomplished, straight-edged, and prim and proper that they're unrelatable to most voters. Hell, even talking like you're educated and honestly explaining tradeoffs (e.g. on economic issues and taking economist-approved stances) is toxically unpopular. The median voter by definition was a mediocre student, didn't go to college, and resented the valedictorian. The valedictorian-types can get away with winning office anyways if both parties foisted those candidates upon them and these types can pretend to be "just like them" well enough, but in the age of social media and grassroots fundraising, they can just have the real thing. People hate those who make them look inferior by comparison. But the personality traits that predict having a more "relatable" candidate will also predict having a more morally tainted candidate - it's all downstream of conscientiousness, and by definition, most people have lower levels of it than the straight-A model student types.
I'm personally someone who wants to vote for someone as smart or smarter than me. People making the decisions should *not* be reflective of the average person in my opinion, and should be markedly more conscientious, intelligent, knowledgeable, and analytically sharp than the norm, because those with power should reflect the most capable and qualified, not the median. But then again, I was a prim-and-proper straight-A student (and neurodivergent which I didn't know at the time), and of course I was bullied for it when I was young. Unfortunately, knowing the reality of this situation means that I want to shy away from candidates who look too much like myself, as much as I wish it were not the case. And even I have said many things that are politically incorrect - and I imagine this is common with people here who caught a lot of heat for criticizing progressive maximalism.
I think this highlights for me the genius of Obama, which has proven extremely difficult to emulate. He was able to simultaneously talk like a smart person who acknowledges tradeoffs while also seeming relatable and populist to ordinary people. Some of this was code switching in different contexts, but he also often interweaved these two styles in the same appearance or speech. The party needs to figure out how to teach and/or recruit more candidates capable of that.
"But something this piece doesn't grapple with is where we draw the line, because I don't think it's morally right or politically strategic to rule out all candidates who have personal flaws or made bad decisions in their past. "
I think the time since the bad judgement matters a lot. Making mistakes in your early 20's or before is pretty typical. I certainly made my fair share when I had more fun than the law allows.
But after that I really want to see a decade plus of good judgement.
I think the tipping point is when a person's life history clearly lays out a repeated pattern of bad behavior. Plenty of people have cheated on their spouses and gone on to do great things and even patch up their marriage. But when someone has a repeated string of betrayals and deception, we shouldn't expect that to suddenly turn around. Even people with that history can change, but that change tends to be marked by significant work to overhaul one's lifestyle that isn't invisible to an outsider.
Likewise with a bad reddit history. People's views change, but that change tends to be visible in one's account history. If a user used to write comments on right-wing pages but the past three years of their comments are left-wing, it tells a clear story of a changed opinion. Platner doesn't qualify here because his history of problematic comments runs pretty much right up to the start of his campaign.
Fully agree. The lesson from this piece comes down to "you should assume the worst about people running for office" which I don't think is the actual intent. "Have better judgement" in a case like this isn't actionable advice, it just sounds like people saying "I told you so" in high-and-mighty moral terms. It's disappointing that it reads that way, because I don't even think Jerusalem was one of the big anti-Platners!
I think I've finally put my finger on what bothers me about this. It looks to me like "resulting" - once you know the outcome, you declare the "evidence" to have been obvious all along, and rebuke yourself for having made the "wrong" decision. But the fact that you turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you made the wrong decision - Annie Duke's book is a good read. Maybe the decision was wrong, but the fact that Platner particularly turned out shit doesn't mean that the decision to support was always wrong. I think the piece does attempt to make a real case, I'm just not convinced by it, and I'd be curious if others who had previously supported Platner (to whatever degree) find it persuasive
"Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don’t want to be in a comprising [sic] situation, act like an adult for fucks sake.”"
In retrospect this seems like knowledge Platner gained from personal experience. It sure is bad if you drink so much you lose self control...
Platner got as far as he did because no other Democrat in Maine wanted to run against Susan Collins. Then the establishment Dems put up a challenger that was a wimpy establishment type in an election in which voters wanted a fighter.
Supporting Platner before was not a mistake, but dumping him now is prudent. Now that Platner has accomplished his mission of defeating Janet Mills, he can be replaced by a more suitable fighting Democrat. Any Democrat has a good chance against Collins this year.
Even Platner had no thought of running until he was recruited. We should direct some of our anger toward the people who looked at Maine and thought that -this- man was a suitable candidate. Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan were chief among those recruiters; you can read a little about them at https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platner-maine-senate-cc7fb61f.
Yeah, you can say that Berni and his bros were a little reckless. Of course, reckless and stupid is what one says when someone takes a risk and it went bad. When the risk pays off, then in hindsight, we it was boldness, genius.
Berni and his bros don't have the money to do the kind of vetting the establish Dems can do, so they have to wing it. You can be mad at them for that if you want. I am a pragmatic moderate and never voted for Berni. Not a hater, not a fan. However, I am grateful that when the establishment Dems failed to recruit a challenger to Collins, Berni stepped up and found someone that would do it and had the charisma to win without establishment PAC money. Now after the rape accusations have come out Berni and his bros did the right thing and asked Platner to drop. We will get a replacement and after Platner paved the way, any run of the mill Democrat should be able to win now. As well that ends well.
I'm not saying that Platner's supporters were reckless. I am saying that they were always wrong to support him. No hindsight is needed for this judgment: it should have been obvious to all that Platner was a bad candidate. And he would have been a bad candidate even if he had been scandal-free. Again, see https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/what-graham-platners-defenders-refused/comment/289845586.
Maine has 1.4 million people. Regardless of one's politics, it isn't hard to find better candidates than Graham Platner.
Better in what way? Someone who held or ran for statewide office before, so had been more scrutinized, more of a stable, known quantity? All those people had already taken a pass at the time Berni recruited Platner, as I keep pointing out. You may be a purity at all costs type of guy, but not everyone is. Most people balance morals and political goals, so we have a lower bar on morals and what we will tolerate in candidate, especially when the alternative choice at the time was a default win for Collins. Later when Mills got in the race, the choice was a bit harder. If Mills would have polled better against Collins than Platner did then it would have been an easy choice to vote for Mills. Platner was polling a bit stronger against Collins, but that was arguably offset by the risk that there were more skeletons in his closet.
No, that's not my thinking. And I'm not in favor of "purity at all costs."
To see why Platner was always a bad candidate, forget the weaknesses that people are talking about. Focus on his strengths:
1) He has a certain set of political positions. Maybe you like them. Fine. But Maine has 1.4 million people, and you can find many who share those positions. Some of them will run for office if they're recruited.
2) He is a veteran.
3) He is handsome—and handsome in a gruff sort of way that conveys “authenticity” to some.
As far as I can tell, that’s it. He has no political experience. There’s no evidence that he has ever even thought deeply about a political matter, let alone worked on one.
He was nominated in no small part because of point 3. In this sense, he is a very Trumpian nominee: chosen not for his intellect or his experience, but because he looks good on TV.
Without the tattoo, the Reddit posts, the sexual history, he might have been an electable nominee—but still a very bad nominee. When did it become acceptable for Democrats to nominate, for the U.S. Senate, someone of no experience, no particular intellect, no obvious curiosity about policy?
If you want to hate Bernie, Mamdani and all the others that recruited and supported Platner, then hate them for caring more about beating Schumer and the centrists than beating Collins and Trump. Liam Kerr has a new posts about the bad game that the leftists are playing:
One of my favorite defense strategies, employed by Freddie deBoer and some others, was that the entire sexual violence thing was just a scheme by the Obama-Clinton wing of the party to protect their power by smearing Platner.
To my recollection, Cuomo lost his last election. That strikes me as evidence in favor of the "don't nominate obviously bad people with an obvious history of doing bad things" argument. Perhaps you would like to demonstrate your understanding of this point?
Did anyone at The Argument support Cuomo? My recollection is that they all said obviously we should support Zellnor Myrie and that there were a few other reasonable candidates but there was still an important question about which of the top two candidates to prefer over the other.
This is a great example of the utter worthlessness of the far-left. At their core, they are a movement comprised and led by the downwardly mobile children of the rich/upper middle classes who, despite all their advantages, couldn’t hack it in the marketplace (which is why they go socialist). They liked Platner because he was their avatar: a rich kid who coasted by on his family’s money, got a 100% disability rating while being vigorous enough to campaign and who’s business is propped up entirely by his mother. They literally recruited him because he was a bartender at a bar where the other far left failsons gather. It obviously helped that he joined along with their pet victim cause du jour (Gaza), which is necessary to garner support from those who make Palestine their entire personality. It’s necessary to forcefeed the failsons a constant diet of insults: “you are worthless. You were given every advantage and yet you failed. It is not the fault of the ‘system’ that your peers outdid you. They have the right to spit on you. Your ‘fixes’ don’t actually fix anything - such as how the left has a great deal of NIMBYism - but are instead there to make you feel good. Had you spent more time in college studying and networking and less time whining about worthless demographics, you’d be doing better. Know your place and shut your face.” Yes, it’s based on personal experience- I know plenty of people who spent too much time in college protesting about how some useless group was being persecuted (and who got incredibly offended when I pointed out that said group needed to improve itself) and now thinks I’m a ‘sellout’ because I earn 3-4x what they do while they eat ramen in a shitty apartment and demand more rent control. Why are they too proud to clean my toilets?
What really got me was the repeated assertion that while you or I might not like his behavior, working class people like a guy who is a little rough around the edges. Where does this belief that working class people have lower moral standards come from? Why should we assume this is the case?
At least in part it comes from "Hillbilly Elegy"
Well before then. It started with the "beer test".
Also, at the personality trait level, Hillybilly Elegy was correct. Lower SES (education and occupation status especially) is correlated with lower conscientiousness (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10256837/), which correlates with these kinds of behaviors.
Because they voted for Trump all 3 times, as well as all the other Republicans with similar issues, and many of them were the very working class types who voted for Bill Clinton 30 years ago. Remember that these scandals hardly affected Bill’s popularity?
We’ve been told repeatedly that the reason why Trump wins and we lose is because we’re the party of Lisa Simpson and they’re the party of Bart and Homer, and there’s more of them than us. That Dems lose because they’re widely perceived as less authentic than the GOP. And authenticity means saying what’s on your mind even if it’s ugly and oftentimes having a checkered past. Patterns in voting actually do back this up - the candidate that can speak plainly and more working-class coded regardless of party (B. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump all had this in common relative to their opponents) tends to win if the race is competitive, and that often outweighs a squeaky-clean past if they look like they came from a well-off white collar background and talks like that. Remember the “beer test”? You don't win the beer test by being an uptight prig who cares too much about pesky things like decorum, propriety, and living life in a moral way.
The reason people don't like Lisa Simpson types is because they simply don't buy that gas stoves or steak or deporting immigrants are immoral in the first place. It's a view we can accommodate or not. If you do accommodate voters' views better than your opponent, you can get away with a lot. But nominating people who share the views of college educated progressives but are also scumbags is just solving the wrong problem.
PS: "Regular guy you want to get a beer with" is not how I remember people describing Obama at the time!
Part of passing the beer test is not moralizing "normal" choices. A huge part in fact. Anyone who even suggests banning gas stoves or steak or gas-powered cars or whatever is someone whose moral principles are so high-minded that they're instantly unrelatable to most people and would fail the beer test on that alone. A scumbag who moralizes doesn't pass the beer test. A scumbag who doesn't moralize does, and that is the #1 secret to Trump's success. He's a scumbag who doesn't pretend that he's not a scumbag, and his voters don't feel that he's above them.
Re: Obama, notice I said "relative to their opponents". Obama passed the beer test with flying colors *relative to Romney*, and as for McCain, 2008 was a special case which any Dem would've won because of the economic crash.
I'm so old that I even remember the spring of 2008 when Obama was pegged as the "wine track" candidate and Hillary was the "beer track" candidate.
I don't know...I think Obama could win both the beer and the decency test. It is possible to have it both ways. And not everyone who is nerdy or like Hermione Granger, is so "upright" they must sound or look like an uptight prig. I think your point is well taken--and this is a real element of populist politics--and democracy. This comes through in the APOLOGY Socrates hit the Athenian people with long ago. Socrates was put to death--but I don't believe the lesson is that we simply are unsuited to a democratic life We need to watch for it--but it is not definitive.
This would be a great thing for The Arg to poll on tbh
Having grown up in the rural working class (in Appalachia), it's not - very much not - "lower moral standards." It's different/lower decorum standards, and a culture that's more tolerant of physical combat (but less tolerant of "scheming").
So someone who is perfectly respectable, and would always address women older than him as Missus, might very well have no problem telling a crude sexual joke to a group of men.
For a good example in national Democratic politics, think Raphael Warnock. I'd be incredibly unsurprised to learn that he had at some point told jokes where a gay man was the butt of the joke, or punched someone when he was in high school for being too handsy with his girlfriend.
Yes - I'm not defending Platner, I'm trying to articulate usefully where the working-class/ white-collar distinction is - which is much more decorum than morality.
Ah, I get what you're saying, never mind. In "it's not lower moral standards", I thought "it's" was referring to his behavior.
To expand on the concept, being working class means I look at Platner's behavior and call him a shitbag. Even before the sexual assault allegations, I looked at the reddit posts and the rampant infidelity, and said he has the self discipline of a methed-out squirrel. If someone brings up the PTSD, I'll happily point out that I know several people who've shot people, several diagnosed with PTSD, some of whom have come close to suicide, and reject that as a cheap excuse.
hard to hold both these thoughts in one's head:
1. lower income people are behaviorally no different than higher income people when it comes to things like criminality
2. crime is downstream from economic hardship
Market observation rather suggests that non-college population has 'Different Moral Standards than Lefty oriented College Grads"
This may be 'lower' or it may be simply different...
not myself taking a view on Platner and this but it's fairly blindfolding oneself to frame this as "lower moral standards"
It was lower, though. Platner's behavior was definitely of a lower standard. And a bunch of Ivy Leaguers decided the working class must be into it, not because they have any insight (lol), but *because* it was lower. That's what they think of the working class. It's an epidemic on the left -- empathy for marginalized groups that is rooted in condescension.
But they aren’t wrong to think that. The white working class voted for Trump 3 times. The last time they voted Democrat in the majority was for Bill Clinton, who just so happened to also be an impeached rapist. It’s probably not the chief reason why they vote for them - it’s the cultural moderation/conservatism. But they do not give a rat’s ass if their guy is a rapist if he’s “just like them” otherwise, by which I mean he can convincingly play the part of being from their culture, sharing their same prejudices, their same grievances, etc. The reason why Trump did well with them is the same reason why Bill Clinton did well with them 30 years ago. They’re guys the guys like to have a beer with. And typically the ones who pass the beer test tend to be the ones with entertaining stories, which require a “past” so to speak.
One shouldn't collapse subject: Clinton wasn't accused of rape.
Yes, he was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_assault_and_misconduct_allegations?wprov=sfti1#).
Well - it's I think a habit of a certain sociological profile - right now Left but a lot of Colege Educated Left/Progressive has strong strains of a secularised and lefty-cuturalised neo-Victorianism, doing good by the poor benighted Poors... who also have totally wrong and icky values and need to be uplifted to think correctly like us correct-thinking people. Heavily superiority-to-condenscenation inflected concern.
Because people see behavior that would be considered too coarse for their tastes and rather than asking “what moral stance have these people reasoned such that they don’t follow the exact same platform of rules as I do”, they’ve just assumed that “not following the exact same platform of rules as I do” = “idk, working class people tell lots of dick jokes and and say ‘retard’ cuz they’re neanderthals and/or jackasses”.
I always felt he was what an Ivy League coastal progressive thought would appeal to white working class people. Then after seeing the people who recruited him I think that belief was vindicated. LOL
My hunch is that it's because it is one of the few explanations more intense prog or left types feel comfortable with offering for bad behavior in the first place
A month or so ago, I thought I would hold my nose and vote for Platner if I lived in Maine. That was a mistake. Using immoral means to achieve a moral end (a check on MAGA).
I feel the same way about a candidate who refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. That is an antisemitic and immoral position. A sinister position different than criticism of the Israeli govt. and wanting to use US aid and arm sales as a way of influencing behavior.
I don’t think a candidate refusing to say Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state is equivalent to being a rapist.
I did not write it was equivalent. I wrote that "I feel the same way" meaning that it is for me a moral mistake to back such a candidate.
Right, I think it's strange for you to feel the same way about these two things. One is much worse!
Mr. Singh, "'I feel the same way' meaning that it is for me a moral mistake to back such a candidate," is not to say "I feel the same way about these two things"; it means, "I feel the same way about the decision to back such candidates."
Completely understand that. The point I am making is that one should not feel the same way about backing a candidate who refuses to say Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state and backing a candidate who is a rapist. The latter is a despicable crime. The former is an opinion, albeit a controversial one.
Both are clarifying no support/no vote zones for me.
And I don’t see questioning the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state as a mere opinion. I see it as a threat to Jewish survival in both Israel and in the diaspora.So, as a Jew, I take it personally and seriously.
pretty sure you would classify as "despicable" and not merely "controversial" if a candidate were to claim other peoples/nations do not have the right to exist or to self determination, such as if a white supremacist declared china or pakistan or ethiopia are not legitimate countries, may not maintain their borders, and that their people should be under the authority of a different regime. by directing this view only at jewish people, you are making a bigoted statement. even if you set aside religion, by directing it solely at israelis, you are making a bigoted statement on the basis of national origin/nationality. your view of israel is nothing more than intellectual whitewashing of bigotry and has nothing to do with criticism of the current israeli govt.
and on the main point of platner and character, it is no surprise that a bigoted and hateful person like him also commits acts of violence.
Israel doesn't have a right to exist is usually a dog whistle for Jew's don't have a right to exist (see also "from the river to the sea")
Then you would’ve been the same as a Republican who votes for Trump knowing who he is to achieve a “moral” end (conservative policy).
You can’t say “character matters” as a reason to not vote for Trump and then hold your nose for Platner.
Read what I wrote with greater care before you comment.
You literally said "I thought I would hold my nose and vote for Platner if I lived in Maine" and that it would've been "using immoral means to achieve a moral end (a check on MAGA).". That is the exact logic behind Republicans voting for Trump. That you no longer think this is to your credit, but honestly, did you not think he'd have a rape allegation from the perspective of a month ago, when it was already known that he was a misogynist who posted on Reddit about rape and stories were coming out about violent behavior towards women?
Anyone who says this has no moral standing over any Republican who endorsed or supported Trump prior to the Access Hollywood tape (before which it was already morally reprehensible to support him) and then went ducking for cover afterwards (most of whom came back to him once he refused to drop out).
Exactly. I changed my mind even before this revelation because I realized it was wrong. I did not think it through.
That's honest.
Platner was always a very bad nominee, and that should have been clear before any of his scandalous acts were brought to light. To see why he was a bad nominee, you don't even need to consider his weaknesses. Just consider his strengths:
1) He has a certain set of political positions. Maybe you like them. Fine. But Maine has 1.4 million people, and you can find many who share those positions.
2) He is a veteran.
3) He is handsome—and handsome in a gruff sort of way that conveys “authenticity” to some.
As far as I can tell, that’s it. He has absolutely no political experience. There’s no evidence that he has ever even thought deeply about a political matter, let alone worked on one.
He was nominated in no small part because of point 3. In this sense, he is a very Trumpian nominee: chosen not for his intellect or his experience, but because he looks good on TV.
Without the tattoo, the Reddit posts, the sexual history, he might have been an electable nominee—but still a very bad nominee. When did it become acceptable for Democrats to nominate this sort of candidate for the U.S. Senate?
When the lesson that many on our side took from 2024 (and frankly 2016) was that we lost because we're the party of HR ladies, Lisa Simpson, priggish schoolmarms, etc. That lesson is still correct, btw. But then it becomes a delicate balancing act between nominating candidates who aren't moral scolds, can speak in an "authentic" working-class manner, that voters "can have a beer with", and don't look like they're the type who will interfere with the working-class way of life while also not behaving in objectively awful ways. Candidates that can thread the needle are gold, but they're rare because often there is a tradeoff. The same personality traits that predict for "authenticity" also predict for bad behavior - chiefly poor emotional regulation and impulsivity. The personality traits that predict being an "HR lady/Lisa Simpson/priggish schoolmarm" - very high conscientiousness and strong emotional regulation, as well as expecting others to be held to these standards - are widely seen as "inauthentic" and are thus disliked because overly proper behavior and expecting others to abide by that is looked upon with suspicion by most people who are not so squeaky-clean.
There may be many people in Maine that believe similar things, but unfortunately, they haven't decided to run. We are resigned to select from those that do. Hopefully Platner's self-destruction inspires more to run! But leftists are not exactly spoiled for options (and Democrats broadly are not much better off)
Platner didn't decide to run out of nowhere. He was actively recruited, and he wouldn't have run otherwise. Save some blame for those recruiters, who could easily have found a better candidate. (For a little more on the recruiters, see https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platner-maine-senate-cc7fb61f.)
One thing that deserved more attention than it got is when Fifield quoted Platner as saying that if someone broke into the house, he'd rape them to establish dominance.
I had missed that point because I didn't have the stomach for the Times article that reported it. For those who are interested, here's the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html.
The article, by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer, has five paragraphs on Platner talking about rape. "Asked about those remarks, a Platner campaign official did not dispute them. A friend who knew Mr. Platner and Ms. Fifield during that period said the comments sounded out of character."
The article also ends with this now-amazing line from Platner: '“I have a lot of ex-girlfriends,” he told voters at a town hall in late April. “They’re all still my friends.”'
Not supporting Platner here (he is finished). Just pointing out that FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton, Gore (and Eisenhower) cheated on their wives. How do you square that circle? Did they all have such bad judgement that they couldn't be President?
One of the key points of Robert Caro’s books is that LBJ was despicable in many aspects of his personal life.
Most of those guys had done things in their lives to prove they were competent and capable in important ways *before* seeking top positions in the US government. It's not the case that anyone who cheats is incapable of performing well; it's that (prior to yesterday anyway) Platner had barely anything else to point to. Honorable military service counts for a fair amount with me, but I served myself so I'm well-aware of how many dumbasses serve well but have atrocious judgment.
I think Jerusalem's point is that one transgression is not necessarily damning, but a pattern of behavior is. All these cheaters lied, and that is bad - but Platner also has a nazi tattoo, a history of incendiary and stupid comments, and a tendency towards physical abuse.
With all of this well-established before this week, nobody should be at all surprised by a credible rape accusation against Platner. I think everyone would be *more* surprised by a credible rape accusation against FDR/JFK/LBJ/Clinton/Gore.
These replies are all reasonable but the point is that JD didn't address any of these in her piece. We all agree that serial killers should not be elected and give a pass to those who shoplifted a Twinky in their teens. Exactly how do we think about everyone in between? The problem for the D's is that they have an issue about both morality and policies and can't figure out how to square those. R's only have issues on policies, apparently. D's can't seem to understand how that works.
JD's point seems to be that she ascribes poor morality to poor judgment and that that kind of bad judgement extents to policy. I think that both of those assertions are wrong.
Also, FWIW, Clinton's bad behavior was well known to anyone paying attention prior to his election. I thought he was the left's Nixon. Tricky Dick but of a different kind. I voted for him anyway.
I don't think that's a fair characterization of this piece. It is true that Jerusalem connects poor morality with poor judgment, but she doesn't say "and that leads to support of bad policies”. Hers is a deeper criticism that poor morality and judgment makes someone untrustworthy around power.
Trump is a great example of this: policy-wise, he’s mostly more moderate than Romney was in 2012. But he also has terrible morality and judgment, which leads to reckless abuses and his attempts to overturn the entire constitutional system to satisfy his animal desires for power.
Platner is in the same boat as Trump. Unlike many of the least trustworthy philanderer presidents - yes, Clinton included - he has shown a pattern of poor judgment across his life and throughout time. It is a matter of degrees, and Jerusalem’s piece is clearly delineating a set of unacceptable behaviors that are worse than twinky-stealing but not as bad as repeated murder.
"Trump is a great example of this: policy-wise, he’s mostly more moderate than Romney was in 2012. But he also has terrible morality and judgment, which leads to reckless abuses and his attempts to overturn the entire constitutional system to satisfy his animal desires for power."
1000 times this.
Character does matter, judgement does matter. I'm a Republican so I often have some sympathy for some of Trump's stated policy goals. But he also messes them up because that's who he is. A conman that conned his way into the presidency.
I agree that poor judgement is disqualifying. As a corollary, I also agree that a track record of success is important (hence my disappointment that Platner got as far as he did. And obviously Trump is a series of cheats / fraud (and racism/ sexism and sociopathy) which is also disqualifying). I just don't think this is easily connected to things like cheating on your wife. I think you can have excellent judgement in politics (or other professional activities) and be lousy in your personal life (as Milan says above). Many such examples.
I think that except for Clinton these are all post-election revelations (and I don't think Gore should be listed). Focusing on Clinton clarifies the question, but I don't think rumors about his pre-1992 conduct were widely known in '92, and by 1996 he'd demonstrated that he could handle the job.
Focusing on Clinton alone is helpful in framing the issue. He not only cheated on his wife, he did so while in office and lied about it (that was the basis of his impeachment and disbarment), bringing his ethical failure even further forward in time. But he was an effective president.
The salience of this sort of quandary has to be seen against two questions: what's at stake in letting the opposing candidate (or party) win, and, is there an alternative path to victory? Try the thought experiment of making the opposing candidate Hitler -- the morally flawed candidate gets a pass on just about anything personal if there's no way to run anyone else. If there's an alternative -- as there still is in Platner's case and as there was from the outset as the lies and uncertainties multiplied -- then cutting your losses and switching candidates seems like an obviously prudent decision. (It parallels the 2024 Democratic choice, though the issue was different.) Although I think Clinton's second term was generally successful, I think in the long term it would have been better for Democrats if he'd been forced to resign and Gore had replaced him. It would, I think, have inoculated more voters against someone like Trump. (But if Gore had been incapacitated and Gingrich were next in line I'm not sure that calculus holds.)
I for one supported Clinton's impeachment at the time and thought Dems should have voted to remove him, even though it was clear that the impeachers were acting in bad faith for partisan reasons and were total hypocrites about bad behavior by their own guys.
This was not because Clinton was a philanderer: it was because he took sexual advantage of someone who reported to him professionally, and then lied about it in court under oath. No sane corporate board would let a CEO remain in his post after doing those things, and the standard for Presidents (and Senators for that matter) should be no lower.
I think that take has aged well, as the very online kids say. For one thing, Dems giving Clinton a pass provided a permission structure for Reps to give Trump a pass. Sometimes slopes really are slippery.
There's an argument to be made that had Hillary divorced Bill, Hillary would've won 2016. Trump shook off the Access Hollywood tape by whatabouting to Bill Clinton, and it was entirely correct. The Dems would've absolutely covered for their own's sexual misconduct as they did with Clinton and all the way up to after 2016. Hillary was a part of that and was complicit. This is what Hillary defenders miss when they say that "Bill wasn't running for president" as a deflection against Trump's attacks. Yes, Hillary wasn't the one who raped and sexually coerced women, but she was married to someone who did, refused to divorce him, and defended him publicly as well as tried to discredit his accusers. It leveled the playing field between the two and turned it into a "both sides suck" election, which typically favors the change candidate.
Yeah I don't live in Maine and so never needed to hold a strong position, but it's very difficult for me to hold that a cheater has such bad moral judgement that we should always assume they have worse skeletons in their closet
The point is that he wasn’t *just* a cheater in our knowledge last week - he was a cheater with a history of disparaging social media accounts and deeply questionable choices of tattoo, with maybe some impropriety in relationships beyond cheating.
I think this piece ignoring ideology is giving short shrift to the pro Platner position. To the extent I supported Platner, it was because he had good policy positions - far better than any of the other Republican or Democratic candidates he might have gone up against. Does that judgement not matter? I don't like reading tea leaves of bad judgement as "this person probably did much worse than I know about" when we're talking about national candidates with, yes, power. No, I wouldn't vote for someone who is clearly a rapist for M4A. But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
I think it's a mistake to assume everyone who supported Platner merely rationalized away every objection because he was "on their team". We saw people cynically using these instances of bad judgement (before we knew about the rape) against him not because they're so morally consistent, but because he wasn't on their team. Matt Stoller can be right about the role of Israel policy while Platner is still a rapist. Both can, and seem to be, true.
I do not understand why the Left embraced Platner so strongly. In the interviews I’ve seen, Platner comes off as someone who has not thought deeply about most issues of public policy. He has basically no track record of political activism or engagement. I understand he’s supported many Left positions during his Senate campaign, but I think it’s hard to guess what he would do over the course of a senate term. Maybe he would be like Bernie Sanders, but maybe he would go off the rails like John Fetterman. To me, his personal life and political approach together form a picture of someone who’s generally a dumbass. A dumbass I would’ve voted for before the rape allegations, but a dumbass nonetheless.
I can agree with most of that, with the caveat that I think the left is too afraid of "another Fetterman" as though Fetterman's personality didn't deeply change as the result of a stroke, something we can't plan for. I'm happy to vote for dumbasses who have good policy positions because there are vanishingly few good candidates in either party and the Left is in a "beggars can't be choosers" situation. We can still have standards but given how many other dumbasses serve in Congress right now, it's just not disqualifying.
Even pre-rape allegation, he wasn't someone with a Nazi tattoo OR a history of infidelity OR a history of troubling comments on women OR at least one ex willing to go on the record and say he was physically abusive; he was someone with all of those things. That's why it's a pattern. OK, fine, one might say, he has bad morals, but what about the rest of his judgment? He has no particularly shiny record to point to. Where is the success in his life which shows that he has his shit together? Where is the business he's built, or the education, or the work he has done faithfully for years, or anything like that? He just seems like kind of a fuckup douchebag who's a bit of a failure-to-launch.
The fact that he mouths some platitudes about M4A seems like pretty weak evidence that he'll be even basically effective.
> But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
Isn't the entire point of the article pointing out the problem in this reasoning? Platner supporters liked his policies and decided to ignore the Nazi tattoo, history of bad comments, and infidelity that summed to strong evidence that he was a generally bad person. All of this evidence was ignored because he's in favor of M4A and anti-Israel so it's a worthwhile trade. The mistake was in failing to understand that 1) bad character suggests there may be worse things in his past, especially because his political history so far has mostly been a string of scandals about said past, 2) bad character leads to bad policy.
> I think it's a mistake to assume everyone who supported Platner merely rationalized away every objection because he was "on their team". We saw people cynically using these instances of bad judgement (before we knew about the rape) against him not because they're so morally consistent, but because he wasn't on their team.
But you did rationalize it away! The second sentence here is you describing how you rationalized it away. Instead of considering whether someone with a Nazi tattoo was a suitable flagship candidate for a left-wing movement, you interpreted it as a manufactured attack by your political enemies that should be deflected.
At the end of the day it's the same mistake conservatives made in supporting Trump. They saw his long history of corrupt behavior and decided that it didn't matter as long as he was on their side. They brushed it off as unfair attacks because everyone in politics is corrupt and therefore why should you have to care if your guy is also corrupt? Then he became president and oh look, the corrupt person is doing corrupt things. Most politicians may have some non-zero level of suspicious behavior, but this one has vastly exceeded the background level of shadiness and has caused proportionately more damage.
The point of the article is that these consequences are predictable. That's why we keep people like this out of politics. When we fail to enforce this norm, we suffer for it.
"
At the end of the day it's the same mistake conservatives made in supporting Trump. They saw his long history of corrupt behavior and decided that it didn't matter as long as he was on their side
"
This
And I just disagree with most of what you say. "The Nazi tattoo, history of bad comments, and infidelity that summed to strong evidence that he was a generally bad person" is what I fundamentally disagree with. Not only are none of those disqualifying to me, they don't sum to anything more than their parts, and he denounced most of it to boot. This isn't like Trump being stridently corrupt and not thinking he's done anything wrong. I'm not going to just assume that someone has worse skeletons in their closet if what I have, in facts, is not disqualifying. A person can have made all those mistakes, and regretted them (as he seemed/seems to) and not turn out to have been a rapist, I just don't see some huge benefit to assuming they are.
But it did sum to more than its parts! He did not denounce his Nazi tattoo, he lied by claiming he didn't know what it was. Even leaving out the evidence Demsas gathered that he knew what it was before his campaign started, to not learn what your skull tattoo means after twenty years can only be a lie or an admission to remarkably poor knowledge about the world. A young marine getting a tattoo he didn't understand is excusable, that same man keeping that tattoo his whole life without any effort to have it removed or overwritten with something else is not.
As pointed out by Demsas, his disavowal of his past comments and actions is simply not believable. This is not digging up his past from decades ago, it's a repeated series of statements and physical attacks that span his adult life. People do change, but if someone with a known history of bad behavior running right up to the moment their political campaign began insists they've left it all behind, it isn't hard to notice that you shouldn't believe them.
You're pretty much exemplifying the problem here. The mental gymnastics and self delusion required to believe that Graham Platner had simply made mistakes blow my mind.
Your position seems similar to the position that Jerusalem Demsas was espousing herself five weeks ago: "I hope Graham Platner wins his election against Susan Collins because I think Democratic control of the Senate is the best path forward for shoring up our democracy."
> But I absolutely will vote for someone with an old Nazi tattoo or who cheated on his wife for M4A, because we're talking about real human lives, and it seems like "morality" never seems to make it to the actual politics.
What does this mean? Electing Nazis is what gets you *Naziism*. Which (I think we're all on the same page about this) is really bad! Worse than Susan Collins, worse than Trump.
Don't elect Nazis: It has actually turned out poorly.
I absolutely adored this piece, but perhaps my favorite dimension involved the emphasis on the intellectual dimensions of character - specifically, the motivated reasoning of convenience on the parts of both the perpetrator and his supporters.
Excellent debrief. May I never have to read about this guy again.
On the subject of judgement, however, I'd like to know more about the individuals/organizations who decided THIS was the guy who should represent Maine in the first place. More broadly: how do we (Democrats) stop running knuckleheads?
> I'd like to know more about the individuals/organizations who decided THIS was the guy who should represent Maine
See https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platner-maine-senate-cc7fb61f. Dan Moraff has a lot to answer for, and he probably shouldn't be playing a role in our politics.
Even before we learned about the Reddit comments, the tattoo, the sexual history—even before all of that, it should've been obvious that Platner was a bad candidate. See https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/what-graham-platners-defenders-refused/comment/289845586.
The bigger issue isn’t how to stop running knuckleheads. Knuckleheads will always run (see the California governor primary). The issue is how to get *good* candidates to run in *every* race, not just the ones that feel winnable (see Maine Gov vs Maine Sen).
That works for me.
Great lede - well said!!
“Judgment comes from marrying intuition, experience, and logic. Judgment is what helps you determine whether a piece of fruit will be ripe before you bite into it, what to say to a friend when their dog dies, and whether a man with a Nazi tattoo who cheats on his wife and makes offensive comments on anonymous accounts is likely to have other skeletons in his closet.”
It's true that some moral failures spring from bad practical reasoning, but alas, mistakes are not the cause of all immorality.
The historical record demonstrates that effective leadership and positive policy outcomes are only loosely correlated with personal morality or good judgement. LBJ is probably the most accessible example, since he's the closest to us, values-wise, but other figures show the same thing: Thomas Jefferson, Charles de Gaulle, etc.. Almost any serious work of history or biography will periodically appall the average reader of The Argument and refute the idea that, as another commenter put it "bad character leads to bad policy."
I'd even argue that in some respects, the opposite is true! Traits we recoil from can even be extremely valuable in politics, like intense interpersonal aggressive tendencies or (tactical, occasional) dishonesty. In a more speculative vein, personal failings seem to induce moral longing that can motivate politicians to do exceptionally positive things, perhaps as monumental acts of atonement.
None of this to say anyone should vote for a candidate they cannot stomach, just that we shouldn't confuse our personal moral intuitions with political judgements.
What were LBJ's major sins? Not involving Vietnam? Genuine, not rhetorical question, I know little about the man beyond some famous policy stuff.
It's hard to do it justice: his biography is wild and compelling. But, in brief, he:
- Was corrupt. He certainly paid for his Senate seat and almost surely manipulated the FCC into regulatory decisions that turned the moribund radio station he bought with Lady Bird into a goldmine.
- Bullied and intimidated every person in his orbit. For example, he would demean subordinates (male and female) by forcing them to attend meetings in the bathroom while he shat.
- Kissed the assess he could not bully or threaten, until his lips bled.
- Generally treated other people as instruments.
I completely agree that Planter's long string of bad decisions over multiple decades should have disqualified him even before the the sexual assault allegation came out (in part because we could have inferred something like that was coming), especially the allegations of being a violent drunk.
But something this piece doesn't grapple with is where we draw the line, because I don't think it's morally right or politically strategic to rule out all candidates who have personal flaws or made bad decisions in their past. Few people have perfect histories, and now that millennials are old enough to run for office more of candidates' bad past decisions will be uncovered simply because millennials have been online for most of their lives. There are no doubt many great leaders who committed moral failings in their personal lives, and probably more than we will ever know about. In a democratic society, I'm uncomfortable with a level of moral strictness that would rule out most people from running for office.
I also don't think it would be strategically wise to rule out candidates who are "rough around the edges". A huge problem for Democrats is they are seen as inauthentic and the party of straight-A student boy and girl scouts. We've seen how such "straight-A student" candidates like Kamala Harris and Secretary Pete have struggled to win over working class voters in general elections and even primaries. Does this mean we should tolerate candidates who are violent drunks or have committed sexual assault? No, but it probably means accepting candidates who have imperfect pasts or who have said politically incorrect things at times.
I see that you've seen my comments on this topic. The Dems have a difficult needle to thread because of the issue we pointed out. There does seem to be a tradeoff in most cases in that in America outside of high-SES progressive enclaves, putting up a Lisa Simpson-type candidate is DOA. They're so accomplished, straight-edged, and prim and proper that they're unrelatable to most voters. Hell, even talking like you're educated and honestly explaining tradeoffs (e.g. on economic issues and taking economist-approved stances) is toxically unpopular. The median voter by definition was a mediocre student, didn't go to college, and resented the valedictorian. The valedictorian-types can get away with winning office anyways if both parties foisted those candidates upon them and these types can pretend to be "just like them" well enough, but in the age of social media and grassroots fundraising, they can just have the real thing. People hate those who make them look inferior by comparison. But the personality traits that predict having a more "relatable" candidate will also predict having a more morally tainted candidate - it's all downstream of conscientiousness, and by definition, most people have lower levels of it than the straight-A model student types.
I'm personally someone who wants to vote for someone as smart or smarter than me. People making the decisions should *not* be reflective of the average person in my opinion, and should be markedly more conscientious, intelligent, knowledgeable, and analytically sharp than the norm, because those with power should reflect the most capable and qualified, not the median. But then again, I was a prim-and-proper straight-A student (and neurodivergent which I didn't know at the time), and of course I was bullied for it when I was young. Unfortunately, knowing the reality of this situation means that I want to shy away from candidates who look too much like myself, as much as I wish it were not the case. And even I have said many things that are politically incorrect - and I imagine this is common with people here who caught a lot of heat for criticizing progressive maximalism.
Definitely.
I think this highlights for me the genius of Obama, which has proven extremely difficult to emulate. He was able to simultaneously talk like a smart person who acknowledges tradeoffs while also seeming relatable and populist to ordinary people. Some of this was code switching in different contexts, but he also often interweaved these two styles in the same appearance or speech. The party needs to figure out how to teach and/or recruit more candidates capable of that.
"But something this piece doesn't grapple with is where we draw the line, because I don't think it's morally right or politically strategic to rule out all candidates who have personal flaws or made bad decisions in their past. "
I think the time since the bad judgement matters a lot. Making mistakes in your early 20's or before is pretty typical. I certainly made my fair share when I had more fun than the law allows.
But after that I really want to see a decade plus of good judgement.
I think the tipping point is when a person's life history clearly lays out a repeated pattern of bad behavior. Plenty of people have cheated on their spouses and gone on to do great things and even patch up their marriage. But when someone has a repeated string of betrayals and deception, we shouldn't expect that to suddenly turn around. Even people with that history can change, but that change tends to be marked by significant work to overhaul one's lifestyle that isn't invisible to an outsider.
Likewise with a bad reddit history. People's views change, but that change tends to be visible in one's account history. If a user used to write comments on right-wing pages but the past three years of their comments are left-wing, it tells a clear story of a changed opinion. Platner doesn't qualify here because his history of problematic comments runs pretty much right up to the start of his campaign.
Fully agree. The lesson from this piece comes down to "you should assume the worst about people running for office" which I don't think is the actual intent. "Have better judgement" in a case like this isn't actionable advice, it just sounds like people saying "I told you so" in high-and-mighty moral terms. It's disappointing that it reads that way, because I don't even think Jerusalem was one of the big anti-Platners!
I think I've finally put my finger on what bothers me about this. It looks to me like "resulting" - once you know the outcome, you declare the "evidence" to have been obvious all along, and rebuke yourself for having made the "wrong" decision. But the fact that you turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you made the wrong decision - Annie Duke's book is a good read. Maybe the decision was wrong, but the fact that Platner particularly turned out shit doesn't mean that the decision to support was always wrong. I think the piece does attempt to make a real case, I'm just not convinced by it, and I'd be curious if others who had previously supported Platner (to whatever degree) find it persuasive
Really appreciate your constructive engagement in this conversation.
"Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don’t want to be in a comprising [sic] situation, act like an adult for fucks sake.”"
In retrospect this seems like knowledge Platner gained from personal experience. It sure is bad if you drink so much you lose self control...
Platner got as far as he did because no other Democrat in Maine wanted to run against Susan Collins. Then the establishment Dems put up a challenger that was a wimpy establishment type in an election in which voters wanted a fighter.
Supporting Platner before was not a mistake, but dumping him now is prudent. Now that Platner has accomplished his mission of defeating Janet Mills, he can be replaced by a more suitable fighting Democrat. Any Democrat has a good chance against Collins this year.
Even Platner had no thought of running until he was recruited. We should direct some of our anger toward the people who looked at Maine and thought that -this- man was a suitable candidate. Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan were chief among those recruiters; you can read a little about them at https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platner-maine-senate-cc7fb61f.
Don't let them off the hook by saying that they couldn't have known that Platner was so bad! Even before they first spoke to him, it should have been obvious that he was a bad candidate. See https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/what-graham-platners-defenders-refused/comment/289845586 for more on this point.
Yeah, you can say that Berni and his bros were a little reckless. Of course, reckless and stupid is what one says when someone takes a risk and it went bad. When the risk pays off, then in hindsight, we it was boldness, genius.
Berni and his bros don't have the money to do the kind of vetting the establish Dems can do, so they have to wing it. You can be mad at them for that if you want. I am a pragmatic moderate and never voted for Berni. Not a hater, not a fan. However, I am grateful that when the establishment Dems failed to recruit a challenger to Collins, Berni stepped up and found someone that would do it and had the charisma to win without establishment PAC money. Now after the rape accusations have come out Berni and his bros did the right thing and asked Platner to drop. We will get a replacement and after Platner paved the way, any run of the mill Democrat should be able to win now. As well that ends well.
I'm not saying that Platner's supporters were reckless. I am saying that they were always wrong to support him. No hindsight is needed for this judgment: it should have been obvious to all that Platner was a bad candidate. And he would have been a bad candidate even if he had been scandal-free. Again, see https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/what-graham-platners-defenders-refused/comment/289845586.
Maine has 1.4 million people. Regardless of one's politics, it isn't hard to find better candidates than Graham Platner.
Better in what way? Someone who held or ran for statewide office before, so had been more scrutinized, more of a stable, known quantity? All those people had already taken a pass at the time Berni recruited Platner, as I keep pointing out. You may be a purity at all costs type of guy, but not everyone is. Most people balance morals and political goals, so we have a lower bar on morals and what we will tolerate in candidate, especially when the alternative choice at the time was a default win for Collins. Later when Mills got in the race, the choice was a bit harder. If Mills would have polled better against Collins than Platner did then it would have been an easy choice to vote for Mills. Platner was polling a bit stronger against Collins, but that was arguably offset by the risk that there were more skeletons in his closet.
No, that's not my thinking. And I'm not in favor of "purity at all costs."
To see why Platner was always a bad candidate, forget the weaknesses that people are talking about. Focus on his strengths:
1) He has a certain set of political positions. Maybe you like them. Fine. But Maine has 1.4 million people, and you can find many who share those positions. Some of them will run for office if they're recruited.
2) He is a veteran.
3) He is handsome—and handsome in a gruff sort of way that conveys “authenticity” to some.
As far as I can tell, that’s it. He has no political experience. There’s no evidence that he has ever even thought deeply about a political matter, let alone worked on one.
He was nominated in no small part because of point 3. In this sense, he is a very Trumpian nominee: chosen not for his intellect or his experience, but because he looks good on TV.
Without the tattoo, the Reddit posts, the sexual history, he might have been an electable nominee—but still a very bad nominee. When did it become acceptable for Democrats to nominate, for the U.S. Senate, someone of no experience, no particular intellect, no obvious curiosity about policy?
If you want to hate Bernie, Mamdani and all the others that recruited and supported Platner, then hate them for caring more about beating Schumer and the centrists than beating Collins and Trump. Liam Kerr has a new posts about the bad game that the leftists are playing:
https://www.welcomestack.org/p/17-thoughts-on-graham-platner
One of my favorite defense strategies, employed by Freddie deBoer and some others, was that the entire sexual violence thing was just a scheme by the Obama-Clinton wing of the party to protect their power by smearing Platner.
Ctl-F "Andrew Cuomo"
No hits
I didn’t support Cuomo what are you on about?
I think the correct way to refer to Andrew Cuomo is "Andrew fucking Cuomo" - at least in NY it is.
Ctl-F "Joseph Stalin"
No hits
Checkmate
To my recollection, Cuomo lost his last election. That strikes me as evidence in favor of the "don't nominate obviously bad people with an obvious history of doing bad things" argument. Perhaps you would like to demonstrate your understanding of this point?
This whole schtick makes you look like a desperate and pathetic loser who has been exposed as a fraud.
Did anyone at The Argument support Cuomo? My recollection is that they all said obviously we should support Zellnor Myrie and that there were a few other reasonable candidates but there was still an important question about which of the top two candidates to prefer over the other.
This is a great example of the utter worthlessness of the far-left. At their core, they are a movement comprised and led by the downwardly mobile children of the rich/upper middle classes who, despite all their advantages, couldn’t hack it in the marketplace (which is why they go socialist). They liked Platner because he was their avatar: a rich kid who coasted by on his family’s money, got a 100% disability rating while being vigorous enough to campaign and who’s business is propped up entirely by his mother. They literally recruited him because he was a bartender at a bar where the other far left failsons gather. It obviously helped that he joined along with their pet victim cause du jour (Gaza), which is necessary to garner support from those who make Palestine their entire personality. It’s necessary to forcefeed the failsons a constant diet of insults: “you are worthless. You were given every advantage and yet you failed. It is not the fault of the ‘system’ that your peers outdid you. They have the right to spit on you. Your ‘fixes’ don’t actually fix anything - such as how the left has a great deal of NIMBYism - but are instead there to make you feel good. Had you spent more time in college studying and networking and less time whining about worthless demographics, you’d be doing better. Know your place and shut your face.” Yes, it’s based on personal experience- I know plenty of people who spent too much time in college protesting about how some useless group was being persecuted (and who got incredibly offended when I pointed out that said group needed to improve itself) and now thinks I’m a ‘sellout’ because I earn 3-4x what they do while they eat ramen in a shitty apartment and demand more rent control. Why are they too proud to clean my toilets?