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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   22831 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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Slow news week. The current thing is still Graham Platner.

NYT: Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior

That's right, the New York Times hunted down as many of Platner's ex-girlfriends as they could to dig up dirt on this guy. It would be an exaggeration to say that the entire article is irrelevant high school-tier personal gossip, but gee there sure is a lot of irrelevent personal gossip. The one anecdote with teeth comes from a woman active in Republican politics.

But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.

During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.” Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.

“It hurt,” she said. But she added: “It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.”

There are a lot of ways one could interpret those paragraphs.

He had what she described as a “warrior ethos” and would fantasize about killing people he deemed a threat, she said. She said he told her that rape was about power.

It was something that stuck with her through the years, Ms. Fifield said.

“He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,” she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way.”

“He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,” she said.

Ladies, never ask your man what he would do to a home invader. Unless you're into that.

This article confirms my earlier suspicion that Platner is getting the kind of hostile media coverage usually reserved for Republicans. The elephant in the room is that this is because Platner likes Nazi imagery (it is beyond serious dispute at this point that he knew for years it was a totenkopf) and dislikes the state of Israel. I am 90% sure that both of the authors are Jewish. It feels icky to break out the calipers for this (though I am not basing my assessment solely on their names and faces. I was able to find old articles linking them to synagogues), but I really do think it is relevant.

This article confirms my earlier suspicion that Platner is getting the kind of hostile media coverage usually reserved for Republicans. The elephant in the room is that this is because Platner likes Nazi imagery (it is beyond serious dispute at this point that he knew for years it was a totenkopf) and dislikes the state of Israel. I am 90% sure that both of the authors are Jewish. It feels icky to break out the calipers for this (though I am not basing my assessment solely on their names and faces. I was able to find old articles linking them to synagogues), but I really do think it is relevant.

He's still being treated with kid gloves compared to a Republican.

He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,” she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way.”

“He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant,” she said.

Ever heard of dark humor buddy

Dark humour is like an un-vaccinated child: it never gets old.

I've seen a bunch of mainstream media coverage pretty explicitly surmising that the Democratic establishment doesn't find anything he is up to is objectionable but they are trying to get rid of him before the deadlines for the general because they expect the Republicans to be sitting on bigger bombshells and they figure someone else would be more electable.

Nothing fancy about the Jews or a sea change in sentiment here.

I gotta say, this Platner guy is proving his enlisted status more every day. What is it I always say? Gayest pack of straight dudes in the world. The politics of this aside, this is what happens when the left (or anyone) finds a legitimate enlisted combat vet to run for them. They're going to have these "skeletons", because these skeletons are just class markers from very distant classes. Yes of course they have politically incorrect views, because political correctness is a class thing between the middle and upper-middle classes. The actual combat troops are the ragged lower edge of the working classes/upper criminal classes usually, or in Platner's case, the downwardly mobile scion of middle class parents.

You can see it in his life. He grew up relatively well-off but provincial. His parents sent him to the good schools, but he went into the military during a war, and specifically into the parts of the military that do the actual fighting. After that he did low-grade mercenary work overseas. This is a guy who could have had any job in the military, could have been an officer. He was in it for the love of the game. Of course he has a temper, of course he has a messy personal life. Of course he's an underachiever in civilian life, until recently at least. Of course he has edgelord ink and wild political views (to middle class civilians). You can't get an authentic soldier without some combination of a lot of that.

In fact, aside from the political valence, it's a pretty similar story to my own.

It's true that the reaction of the average npr listener to the average infantry squaddies banter is hilarious. But plattner is just hilariously over the top about it too. He's like a pmc lefties idea of what a dirty infantryman is like, the same way that Michael moore acts almost as his own parody of an ugly American

Uh, I've said much, much worse than anything released about Platner. And I'm one of those middle-class-trained kids who is uncomfortable with the full throated prole language. Platner's stuff is completely normal, even on the mild side. He is a PMC's idea of a dirty infantryman, by being severely sanitized.

I gotta say, this Platner guy is proving his enlisted status more every day.

Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

[Kipling, 1892]

Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity,

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.

("You like Kipling?" "Dunno, I've never kippled!")

She said he told her that rape was about power.

Isnt this the bog-standard, completely expected feminist analysis of rape? Why is this being presented as something spooky or menacing when he's just repeating Dworkin takes?

He's the real life Almost Politically Correct Redneck:

Rape is about power, therefore I want to rape another man if he fucked with me, for the power.

I spent a few minutes thinking about that post, knowing there was a joke there, and then the second I walked away from my computer, unable to return for hours, I was struck with a severe esprit d'escalier. The proper Platner in the Senate joke:

Graham, you just raped John Fettterman!

Yeah, he was going to vote no. Don't worry, it wasn't in a gay way.

Headlines from the future:

Graham Platner in Hot Water After "Sieg Hiel" Salute at State of the Union: Platner says it was "clearly satire"

Graham Platner Spotted Driving with "I bought it before we knew he was crazy" bumper sticker on his Volkswagen GTI

Controversy Swirls Around Platner's "25 Point Plan" for the Democratic Party Platform

Senator Platner, Secretary Hegseth, FBI Director MIA: The three haven't been seen in public for three days after Platner offered to "get out a bottle" at Oversight Hearing.

Senate Debates Censure or Removal of One of its Own: Senator Graham Platner of Maine faces consequences from punching President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in the face at a meet and greet; Platner retorts that "everyone wanted to."

Gonna be really exciting to see that mentality play out in the Senate.

I’ll just take the funny hot take. He’s 100% gay (or bisexual) if he said he would rape a male home intruder. I even have some dominant kinks. At no point have I ever had a thought of raping a guy because I am dominant.

I’ll even admit torture can have value. Perhaps for information. Potentially to discourage future bad behavior in your enemy if you have sufficient power. Like the guys who killed Nowak. I probably feel they should be executed. And I might even want to discourage that behavior in others in the future by not giving them a clean death. But there are lots of ways to torture that don’t involve having sex with them.

I’ll just take the funny hot take. He’s 100% gay (or bisexual) if he said he would rape a male home intruder. I even have some dominant kinks. At no point have I ever had a thought of raping a guy because I am dominant.

I have a distinct memory of being in high school dorm in the early 2000s and watching the Red Sox play the Yankees and excitedly yelling to a friend something like, "Look, the Sox are raping the Yankees!" Which got me a talking to by one of the adult counselors about how I shouldn't use the word "rape" like that because normalization or trivialization or glorifying or whatever. But to my teenage brain, before that, "rape" had been just another way to refer to mercilessly dominating someone else, usually in a competitive environment. I'd probably picked it up from being a big competitive online Quake/Counter-Strike/Unreal Tournament gamer in middle/high school. Being charitable, I could believe someone like him having that same mentality with respect to the word "rape." I certainly wasn't trying to invoke the idea of Pedro Martinez holding down Don Zimmer and forcibly sticking his dick into him when I was using that same word.

I remember hearing that PornHub had a category called "Rape" (which referred to videos simulating men raping women – at least in theory), and they were begging people to stop uploading the entire Germany v. Brazil World Cup final under that category as it was taxing their servers.

That was a different era. Rape porn has been removed from pornhub for years.

Using the word "rape" in a search query gets you blocked with a snotty "uhm, sweaty, don't you know rape is bad and illegal?" popup. You cannot even search for CNC anymore. The C literally stands for "consensual" for fucks sake! But nope, Pornhub has decided consensual sex is "illegal and abusive". Somehow, this doesn't apply to stepsisters who are stuck in household appliances.

(And don't get me started on the boner-killing pride banners they have up right now.)

It only takes a few nonconsensual, or even just iffy, uploads to make allowing that a liability. And the stepsisters are usually engaged in such deliberately atrocious acting that even a moron could understand it's play.

I don't think that's it, because in most cases the nonconsensual videos are professionally produced too; this is obvious from the acting and grooming and multiple camera angles and literally everything that gives it away as a professional production.

It's just part of the great censoring of the internet. You cannot even search for rape porn on Google or Bing anymore. Try it! Turn off safesearch, search for "rape porn", select video results, and you will get 0% porn results. Literally nothing! They don't block your query but they just show you non-porn results. And it's not Google and Bing blocking porn in general, because if you change it to "stepsister porn" you immediately get 100% porn results.

It's clear that rape porn has just been banned from the modern internet. It's being treated like child porn or revenge porn, despite being not actually illegal or even particularly immoral. This isn't super relevant to the topic being discussed in this thread, I admit, but it still grinds my gears, because it's a sign of the internet, once a bastion of freedom, becoming completely corporatized and sanitized. And I say that as someone who only rarely watches porn to begin with.

My teen son uses "got raped" to refer to taking a heavy hit in sports all the time.

Graham definitely meant cock in ass, though.

This seems hard to square with his clarification that he's not doing it in a gay way: you wouldn't expect him to need to clarify if he's using the term "rape" to refer to "beating them soundly in a fight". I'm sure there is a way to fight in a homosexual manner, but it's unclear why he'd expect someone to assume that's what he'd be doing.

And having to explain that you'd beat up a home invader to show that you're dominant doesn't make a lot of sense either: you'd beat them up to get them to stop invading your house!

From the way it's phrased it really seems like he's referring to a separate action besides just "get in a physical fight and win".

I can't be bothered to read the article because I don't really care, but that could be a very stupid (and it does seem Platner is stupid in some way) attempt to impress the girlfriend about how manly and dominant he was; nobody better mess with him, he is so tough he'd rape (in the above quoted sports/online gaming sense) them, totally destroy them if they dared break into his private space and try and take his stuff, I can defend my territory so you don't have to worry about any bad guys because I'm tougher and badder than them, you're safe with me babe?

if he said he would

He's at least 95% gay or bisexual if he would rape a male home intruder, but just saying he would sounds like the sort of gag I would have thought was grossly funny (in both senses of the adverb) when I was half his age. "You're gay?" "Nah, straight, but some people just need to learn their lesson, you know?"

It almost feels like an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking gag. Did you know the woman-abusing Nazi-fan candidate also tells bad jokes!?!

I’ll even admit torture can have value. Perhaps for information. Potentially to discourage future bad behavior in your enemy if you have sufficient power. Like the guys who killed Nowak. I probably feel they should be executed. And I might even want to discourage that behavior in others in the future by not giving them a clean death.

But as the wise man said: “If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things.”

Sure but this goes into a more theological argument that there are absolute good things and absolute bad things. My more pagan impulses say you punish the rival tribe when they misbehave and harm your tribe.

So when a foreigner in your homeland stabs to death someone in your tribe you torture them for a month. Then you post their mutilated body on your city gates for a year as a sign of what happens to someone who kills a UK citizen.

And then a visitor or maybe merchant to your lands does not go stabbing one of your citizens.

My more pagan impulses say you punish the rival tribe when they misbehave and harm your tribe.

So when a foreigner in your homeland stabs to death someone in your tribe you torture them for a month. Then you post their mutilated body on your city gates for a year as a sign of what happens to someone who kills a UK citizen.

Now try to consider what happens if that maxim is made a general rule. I highly doubt that it would make for a more peaceful or prosperous world.

I think a better world.

I feel there is a lot of naïveté to say it wouldn’t make a better world. If you have only lived in a white European world then it seems like it would be bad.

Was the Democratic Republic of Congo better or worse under Belgian Rule who sometimes were brutal? Was Chile better or worse before Pinochet? Was Mexico better or worse under Aztec rule or Spanish rule? Was S Africa better or worse under Apartheid? Were blacks better or worse under segregation? Was Syria better or worse when Assad lost power? Was Libya better or worse under Ghaddafi? Supposedly England executed like 1% of their population per year for a century did that make them better or worse? Was the Roman Empire better or worse than the Dark Ages? Is El Salvador’s better or worse under Bukele? Were Blacks in America better off during peak woke and anti-policing?

I feel like an eye Doctor. Is this image better or worse?

I don’t think it’s the least bit clear that some brutality is worse for society.

I meant if everyone applies your proposed course of action, including the lower-albedo populations. We are no longer living in the age of "We have the Maxim Gun, and they don't."

I guess I just reject the idea partially that good guys and bad guys exists but that there is even a slippery slope here. That you can limit the use of certain tools to appropriate situations. If you want to have civilization you need to have tools to enforce civilization to prevent anarchy. We do this thru many means - culture, religion, normal-policing/law, military might etc. In the modern world we have a lot of other means besides brutality. The Romans were weaker than the American State so crucifying a bunch of people who misbehave is less needed.

The Nowak murder seems to show a complete lack of respect for the hosts people and culture. 9/11 conspirators showed a similar disrespect for America. We showed our vengeance by invading a bunch of Muslim and probably leading to deaths of some randoms. Maybe it would have been better to just crucify a few of them to Brooklyn Bridge. Nowak murder also feels like a complete disrespect of the British and potentially an appropriate to hang the family to Tower of London.

Why limit it to foreigners? I say bring the whole Bloody Code back. Or are you feeling too much tribal kinship with white chavs specifically?

But as the wise man said: “If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things.”

The "wise man" is, in the general case, wrong, as the case of self defense illustrates to anyone this side of the schism.

“If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one

By that reasoning you couldn't even imprison someone in jail.

You can if you pretend it's the most impassionate, cold-headed punishment you can devise. Many prisons, however, differ in practice.

You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things.

You absolutely can! That's why this keeps happening. You just say "we're the good guys!" und zen you exterminate ze <insert totally-not-immutable characteristic here>. It's the easiest thing in the world. Everybody's doing it.

Since the NY Times article linked in the parent post is paywalled, here is an AI summary of the article’s contents:

AI Generated Text Follows

Detailed Summary

This article examines allegations and personal accounts from several women who dated Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine. The story emerges amid growing scrutiny of Platner's personal history, including reports that he exchanged sexual messages with women while married, previous controversial online comments about women and rape, and questions surrounding a tattoo associated with Nazi symbolism.

Central Theme

The article presents a divided portrait of Platner. Some former partners describe him as kind, caring, and supportive, while others recount relationships they characterize as emotionally damaging, volatile, and, in one case, physically intimidating. The piece explores how these accounts complicate Platner's campaign narrative of personal redemption following struggles with PTSD, depression, and alcohol abuse after military service.

The Women Who Raised Concerns

The most critical accounts come from three women who were involved with Platner over extended periods.

Lyndsey Fifield

Lyndsey Fifield dated Platner between roughly 2013 and 2015 while both lived in the Washington, D.C., area.

She described the relationship as passionate but deeply unhealthy. According to Fifield:

  • Platner often drank heavily.
  • He was repeatedly unfaithful.
  • He displayed contempt toward women and their emotions.
  • He sometimes became physically aggressive during arguments.

While she explicitly stated that he never punched or hit her, she alleged several incidents involving physical force:

  • Grabbing her shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
  • Pulling her out of a taxi by the wrist during an argument.
  • Twisting her arm behind her back and forcing her into a room, then holding the door shut until she calmed down.

Platner's campaign strongly denied allegations of physical intimidation or abuse.

Fifield also described behavior that she found disturbing:

  • Keeping an AR-15 rifle in his apartment.
  • Frequently sharpening an axe while watching television.
  • Expressing fascination with violence.
  • Making repeated comments about rape as an act of dominance rather than sexuality.

She recalled him saying that if someone broke into his home, he would rape them to establish dominance. The campaign did not directly dispute that he made such remarks.

Fifield said she came away from the relationship believing Platner held deeply misogynistic attitudes. Years later, she recorded in a diary that he was "the most toxic literally abusive man on earth who destroyed my life."

The article notes that Fifield is politically conservative and has worked with Republican-affiliated organizations. Platner's campaign emphasized this fact, suggesting political motivations. Fifield rejected that characterization, insisting she would speak out regardless of his party affiliation.

The Anonymous Maine Woman

A second woman, a Democrat from Maine who requested anonymity, described an on-and-off long-distance relationship with Platner that lasted for years.

Her description echoed themes raised by Fifield:

  • Charisma mixed with emotional instability.
  • Heavy drinking.
  • Frequent womanizing.
  • Relationships that left emotional damage.

She summarized her experience by saying she felt like "collateral damage to the world that is his."

Although the article provides fewer specific allegations from this woman, her account reinforced the image of a man whose personal relationships were often chaotic and harmful.

Jenny Racicot

Jenny Racicot, a Maine Democrat, dated Platner intermittently between 2019 and 2021, a period that overlaps with what Platner describes as his post-trauma recovery phase.

Racicot said that revelations about Platner's past online comments regarding women did not surprise her.

According to her:

  • The comments matched aspects of his personality she had personally witnessed.
  • She believed he did not respect women.
  • In 2021, he arrived at her home intoxicated after she had told him not to come.

Although she declined to discuss details of that incident, she described the behavior as reckless and unsettling. Afterward, she ended contact with him.

Women Who Defended Platner

The article also includes testimony from women who had positive experiences with Platner.

Caroline Lemp

Caroline Lemp, who dated him briefly in 2013, described him as:

  • Kind
  • Fun
  • Respectful
  • Safe to be around

She called him a "gentle giant" and said she never saw signs of aggression or instability.

Two Anonymous Former Partners

Two additional former partners, interviewed through Platner's campaign, also offered favorable assessments.

They said:

  • He never physically threatened them.
  • They felt safe around him.
  • While one noticed problematic drinking habits, neither experienced abusive conduct.

These women support his Senate candidacy and reject the negative portrait painted by other former partners.

The Tattoo Controversy

A major section of the article focuses on Platner's controversial tattoo.

The tattoo is a skull-and-crossbones image known as the Totenkopf, historically associated with Nazi SS units.

Platner's Explanation

Platner has repeatedly said:

  • He got the tattoo while stationed in Croatia with fellow Marines in 2007.
  • He believed it was simply an intimidating skull-and-crossbones image.
  • He did not realize it was widely recognized as a Nazi symbol until reporters raised concerns during his Senate campaign.
  • Once informed, he moved to cover the tattoo.

Fifield's Contradictory Account

Fifield strongly disputes this explanation.

She claims:

  • Platner referred to the tattoo as "my Totenkopf."
  • He explicitly discussed its Nazi origins years before the campaign.
  • He explained that Marines in his unit selected the image because they saw parallels between themselves as a combat unit and the historical military reputation associated with the symbol.

Platner's campaign categorically denied her account.

This dispute raises broader questions in the article about Platner's credibility and whether he has been fully transparent regarding the tattoo's origins and meaning.

Platner's Narrative of Recovery

Throughout his Senate campaign, Platner has framed his life story as one of struggle and redemption.

He has openly discussed:

  • Combat service in the Marines.
  • PTSD.
  • Anxiety.
  • Depression.
  • Alcohol abuse.
  • Difficulty maintaining relationships after military service.

According to his account:

  • He was emotionally damaged after leaving the military.
  • His early post-service years were characterized by heavy drinking and personal instability.
  • He returned to his hometown of Sullivan, Maine, in 2016.
  • Through therapy and support from the Department of Veterans Affairs, he rebuilt his life.
  • He eventually took over an oyster farm and became active in local community life.

The article acknowledges these efforts at recovery but questions whether his personal growth has been as complete as his campaign portrays.

Evidence of Continued Problems

The article points to more recent events suggesting ongoing issues.

Reddit Posts

Journalists reviewed more than 1,400 Reddit comments made by Platner between 2016 and 2021.

The posts reveal:

  • Continuing struggles processing military experiences.
  • Discussions of politics and social issues.
  • Statements reflecting a transition away from his earlier worldview.

By 2021, he described himself as a socialist, gardener, and psychedelic user who no longer embraced the patriotic ideals that motivated him to enlist.

However, some of his older posts also contained remarks about women and rape that became politically damaging once uncovered during the campaign.

Dating-App Allegations

The article describes a 2024 discussion in a private Facebook group called "Are We Dating the Same Guy."

A woman posted that:

  • Platner had previously ghosted her.
  • He later appeared on another dating app.
  • She suspected he might have a significant other.

Multiple women reportedly responded, noting that he was married.

Racicot confirmed the discussion was genuine.

Marriage and Sexting Revelations

Further pressure on Platner's campaign emerged when reports revealed he had exchanged sexual messages with multiple women while married to Amy Gertner.

The revelations:

  • Alarmed Democratic Party leaders.
  • Threatened his image as a redeemed and stable family man.
  • Created questions about whether more undisclosed information might surface.

Platner acknowledged causing marital problems but disputed parts of the reporting.

Gertner publicly defended him, stating that while their marriage was imperfect, she wanted to remain married to him and support his candidacy.

Overall Conclusion

The article presents Graham Platner as a deeply polarizing figure whose personal history has become a major issue in his Senate campaign.

Supporters and some former partners describe him as compassionate, intelligent, and transformed by years of therapy and self-reflection after military service. However, several long-term former partners paint a darker picture, describing patterns of misogyny, emotional volatility, heavy drinking, infidelity, and, in one case, physical intimidation.

The reporting does not conclusively verify all allegations, and Platner disputes many of the most serious claims. Nevertheless, the accounts challenge his campaign's central message that his troubled years are entirely behind him. As Democrats view Maine's Senate race as strategically important, the controversy has intensified scrutiny of whether Platner's personal conduct aligns with the image of growth and redemption he has presented to voters.

He explained that Marines in his unit selected the image because they saw parallels between themselves as a combat unit and the historical military reputation associated with the symbol.

That has a vague shred of plausibility because the Totenkopf did not originate with the SS, at least according to Wikipedia, they adopted it as lineage from Prussian and imperial military:

Use of the Totenkopf in Germany as a military emblem began under Frederick the Great, who formed a regiment of Hussar cavalry in the Prussian army commanded by Colonel von Ruesch, the Husaren-Regiment Nr. 5 (von Ruesch). It adopted a black uniform with a Totenkopf emblazoned on the front of its mirlitons and wore it on the field in the War of Austrian Succession and in the Seven Years' War.

..The skull continued to be used by the Prussian and Brunswick armed forces until 1918, and some of the stormtroopers that led the last German offensives on the Western Front in 1918 used skull badges.

It's still a dumb choice, but it's not "and I picked this solely because it's a Nazi symbol and I'm a Nazi".

That has a vague shred of plausibility because the Totenkopf did not originate with the SS, at least according to Wikipedia, they adopted it as lineage from Prussian and imperial military

"Evil cannot make; it can only mock."

Or, you know...

I’m amazed the article got captured, considering how NYTimes is putting up anti-archive filters.

The incentives are mixed, they want high circulation of their articles and they want people to pay for them, price discrimination not total lockout.

NYT are incompetent and Archive.is has per site specific workarounds for archiving with paid accounts.

The workarounds don’t always work. It’s a cat and mouse game and sometimes NYT is able to block archive.today.

He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them,” she recalled, saying that he added that it would not be in “a sexual way, not in a gay way.”

Gigachad.jpg

Is the media trying to get me to like him? That is the funniest thing I've read in days, if not weeks.

This is the level of attack ad the anti-Platner team is running: ex-gfs interpreting bad jokes in the most aggressive way possible.

Literally a /k/ screenshot

Turbo based

He might be the first politican I'd like to actually have a beer with.

"So run it by me again, Graham, how exactly is raping a dude not gay?"

"It's not a sex thing! It's about power. Dominance."

"But you got hard."

"Hard for power!"

"Power over a dude!"

Historically, weren't there societies that maintained a pretty significant distinction between the two parties in even a consensual interaction? Or is that just another pop history myth?

There's still societies that look at things that way today. As a GWOT veteran, Platner presumably has been to those places

In ancient Rome, one of the gayest things you could possibly do was go down on a woman.

Yes - gayness is a modern western construct. The old school way has manly men who did the dicking and a mix of women, transwomen, effeminate men who like it up the butt, teenage boys, and weak men who can't say no who took it.

AFAIK Leviticus is the first time an authority unequivocally condemns dicking another guy. But the Biblical framework condemns the top and the bottom separately, it doesn't lump them together as "gay".

and a mix of women, transwomen, effeminate men who like it up the butt

Come on, you can't start off with "gayness is a western construct" and then drop "transwomen" in there. If anything it's the opposite, the non-modern, non-western constructs that activists like to appropriate as "trans" are actually closer to our conception of "gay" - effeminate men who like it up the butt.

Not necessarily. I mean presumably no one in the Sacred Band was considered an effiminate wuss

"The Gang Rapes a Home Invader"

It’s probably all real because it sounds bad but not that bad. If it were fake, it would be a brave woman coming forward with the story of how he raped her brutally over a glass table at the mall during a college party, but I can’t remember when it happened and none of my friends remember anything about it.

What does "real" even mean when you're asking someone's ex-gf questions about them?

The baseline expectation should be that if you ask a woman about her ex-bf, she'll describe him as some mix of narcissist/manchild/abusive/idiot/loser. Anything positive is actively surprising.

Among other artifacts she provided a diary entry from 2016 where she called him “the most toxic literally abusive man on earth who ruined my life”.

Ok and?

Women criticize ex boyfriends constantly and absurdly. I was confused by this, when I was in high school. Melodramatic nonsense.

Your earlier comment was about how women describe their ex-boyfriends when asked. I provided evidence that these allegations are not just from her public-facing self but even from her internal monologue.

I guess I wasn't clear in my meaning, because I didn't think the point needed to be explicated at length.

People are not objective when talking about former, or current, lovers. There is no "real" and no "truth" to be found in their accounts of their former lovers. I don't know if she's lying in the sense of knowingly telling a falsehood, or telling the truth as she experienced/remembers it, and I have no way of knowing. The testimony of ex-gfs is useless, because they are in most cases incapable of objective truth, it's too close to their self.

This is not an area of human experience that can be explained through litigating facts and evidence.

This is Brett Kavanaugh all over again. Some things just shouldn't be talked about, because it's pointless to talk about them.

On the contrary, since it's coming from a Republican political operative it seems immensely sus that he's being accused of something that doesn't quite rise to the level of criminality sufficient to justify discovery but is more than sufficient (if true) to torpedo a Senate campaign. It's the perfect level of accusation if you don't actually want to have to back up anything you're claiming in court.

According to the woman herself she has plenty of corroborating evidence that the New York Times simply decided not to use:

https://x.com/lyndseyfifield/status/2062808679829704815?s=46

Moreover, what of the other women?

None of the other women suggested he did anything comparable, though. Her allegations are clearly an outlier so far

Supposedly, Republicans are heavily insinuating/claiming that they have much worse stuff to drop in the general. This is just primary funtime.

Maybe, but if they actually have much worse stuff to drop then one would imagine they'd hold off on dropping anything so that they could clobber him after the nomination to guarantee the reelection of Susan Collins. If they're too successful right now they're just going to get Platner replaced with someone they don't have a vast stash of oppo research on

Also IIRC the woman making the (most serious) accusations is also the same one who dropped the tattoo allegations which would suggest she's personally trying to torpedo Platner

AIUI, this latest round was from the NYT, and they have been accused of actively trying to sabotage the scandal-mongering, e.g. misleading the women in the story about what would be included and leaving out a bunch of details and evidence.

Which isn't a bad play, tactically.

I feel bad for the lady’s husband. One day you’re married to a tradwife influencer, and the next day your wife’s sexual history is printed in the New York Times.

It's rare to see this kind of media coverage used against Democrats right? So what does this case mean? It's probably not a sign of Democratic moderation per se. If the authors really are Jewish it seems this is part of the re-alignment whereby (Zionist) Jews are becoming Republican? If so, we might expect to see more media and education power defect to the Right.

It's a sign of infighting and a breakdown of "no enemies to the left" absoluteness. Previously "vote blue no matter who" was the mandatory belief, but now it's becoming acceptable for jewish libs to tell people to stay home and not vote for antisemitic libs. And it's fine for muslim lover libs to tell people to stay home and not vote for jew libs. But of course voting for republicans is beyond the pale. Even the most milktoast republican is worse than hitler.

Vote blue no matter who was only ever a hammer used to convince leftists to moderate, never a tool used to make moderates move left.

That doesn't really seem compatible with all the extreme social justice stuff that is/was big quite recently.

I'd say it's more a hammer to move people who aren't "with it" in the "with it" direction.

Oooh, I have thoughts about this.

So, I'm roughly the same age as this guy. My grandfather was pushing me to join the military out of high school, and one of the reasons I never even considered it was because I'd absorbed nice, modern, genteel, Atlantic Democrat memes like "People who join the army are the bottom 10% of their class who just want to murder sandni**gers".

Sorry, vets.

I say this because Graham Platner struck me as actually fitting that description. Well-off prep school kid from New England joins the Marines in 2004? That's weird. Copilot data about military members from each state doesn't even bother to list Maine. Other estimates put the total Marines from the state in the low hundreds. "Well-off prep school kid from New England joins the Marines" is possibly literal one-in-a-million rarity. Maybe if the kid was a die-hard patriot, but even at 18 he was already a leftist anti-war protestor.

So it struck me that Platner might actually be the kind of guy who signed up just to kill people.

And then it turns out that he posted on /marines that he joined up because he wanted to kill people and had a hell of an excellent experience.

So now I'm thinking he's an old school style of communist. Less "soy vegan latte" and more "Soviet leader who won an internal power struggle by just killing the opposition".

I don't think the American system will give him much of an opportunity to indulge, but it's funny that he's probably a better mark for the "worried about fascism" people than anyone they've ever called a fascist.

And then he worked as a mercenary to kill more people and described his group as being for killing. He's not a subtle man.

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