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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11835 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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But the Democrats aren't going to stomach an abrupt about-face in terms of values, even if Platner was mercenary enough to do it

Why not? They stomached Platner before now. He has a Nazi tattoo, he has already been accused of sexual impropriety towards women. The difference is that before the Democratic tastemakers decided Platner was in, now they've decided he's out.

Platner going over to the Republicans means that he's going to have to change position on culture war issues: he'd probably have to be positive towards Trump, be negative on immigration, maybe talk about LGBT stuff going too far. If he's not doing that, just changing the D next to his name to an R and changing nothing else, he has all the same problems with the added bonus of losing anyone who's voting blue no matter who. He'd need to actually adjust his platform to appeal to Republicans.

With Fetterman that kind of works: his thing has always been working class economy stuff, and that doesn't really force him to take a position on most of these things. The working class has at least some level of support for Trump, so he can just kind of sit on that, take centrist positions, not talk too much about the culture war stuff. I'm sure there are people in PA that voted in Fetterman as a Democrat and still support him now even when he's often taking Republican positions.

There are other politicians that have a following of their particular brand of politics that might be able to hold constituents crossing the aisle. Bernie could conceivably be very concerned about immigration (there's a quote from him about immigration oppressing the working class or something, from before 2016) and end up as a R: he'd lose a lot of voters but I bet he'd hold some number. Thomas Massie might make it as a D, certainly the Israel focus would go over well. As long as there's something that's orthogonal to the red/blue divide you might be able to be on either side of it.

I don't know what that orthogonal thing would be for Platner. My impression of him is that his unique edge is that he's a "military tough guy" that we'd expect to be a generic Republican, but instead holds generic Democrat positions: he's an unusual delivery vehicle for those positions that might attract voters that wouldn't normally be amenable to them. If he switched sides, that edge is gone: a military tough guy who holds Republican positions is not hard to find in the slightest.

I can't imagine who would be voting for a Republican Platner, over Collins or whatever generic candidate the Democrats end up putting up.

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