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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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What are the Democrats’ carrots & sticks for pushing Graham Platner out of the campaign?

If you follow U.S. domestic politics (or if you’ve just read the thread below), then you’ll know who Graham Platner is. He’s the young-ish politician who won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from Maine, in the process attracting attention for combining liberal political positions with some elements of a blue collar background. In my view, he received a tremendous amount of scrutiny for being at the intersection of 3 significant stories: (1) the Democrats’ struggles to attract rural male voters; (2) the importance of Maine as a toss-up Senate seat in 2028 for deciding the balance of the U.S. senate; and (3) the adoption of certain leftist political positions by new politicians (broadly economic populism and antagonism towards Israel) that are seen as breaking from norms and potentially as a marker of future political currents.

More recently, Platner has also attracted attention for a series of scandals. First, some of his early, intended-to-be-anonymous internet postings were identified, and they were both unseemly and promoted ideas in conflict with his current public political positions. Then, it was revealed that he had a Nazi-symbol tattoo from his time in the military (Platner denies knowing that the tattoo was Nazi imagery when he got it; some people find this explanation believable and others don’t). Then, it was revealed that he’d recently pursued extra-marital relationships through some kind of seedy dating app. Then, some of his ex-girlfriends came together alleging that Platner was volatile and had been trouble towards them in various ways.

Through all this, the Democratic establishment had mostly defended Platner. Then, a few days ago, one of Platner’s exes came forward alleging treatment by Platner that would seem to satisfy the legal standard for rape (some disagree that the alleged conduct would constitute rape - see the discussion below for details).

Anyway, I’m not really interested in re-litigating any of these items. But what really fascinates me is that the Democratic establishment now seems to have arrived at a consensus that Platner’s campaign needs to end so that another candidate might be selected (Platner has essentially lost all prominent public-backing over the last 48 hours). But ultimately, it seems that procedure requires that Platner himself formally resign his campaign in for this to happen. My question is, how can Platner be influenced to abandon his campaign?

Normally, you influence with carrots (rewards for good behavior) and sticks (punishments for bad behavior). Democrats can appeal to Platner’s sense of dignity (such as it is), patriotism, and desire for the common good. But what other levers do they hold?

I doubt that Democrats would just concede Maine if Platner were to remain in the race. If he drops out now, he’ll always be remembered for this last week. But if he stays in the race, then I assume he'll benefit from 4 months of Democrats campaigning for him, seeking to rehabilitate his image. Even if he ends up losing the Senate race badly, that seems like a better outcome for Platner individually than the alternative of dropping out now.

What am I missing here?

I do not live in the same time zone as Maine. I should never have learned about his Senate campaign - mostly because I can't vote for or against him. As the saying goes, "everything I have learned about him was without my consent".

And yet so many people who make commentary think that he is worth coverage, from CNN on down to FD Signifier.

So when The Onion jokes about the stick...I know the Onion cares a lot more about his policy preferences than me. At least there's a veneer of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" about it.

Who knows how it will all turn out but I can confidently predict the following: Platner's replacement will be proclaimed by Democrats as a brilliant new discovery, the perfect candidate, the candidate they wanted all along, not just a candidate making the best of a bad situation but really the best possible candidate. An extraordinary candidate. "Maine-ia". Donations will pour in. The media will write encomiums about how brilliant the candidate is. Late-night hosts will joke about the candidate becoming an unlikely sex symbol overnight. Presidential ambitions will be discussed.

And if the candidate procedes to lose anyways, everyone will act as though none of it ever happened. You are actually a little weird if you think it did.

Man angry that chip bag with lightning bolt on it was not actually electrified, nor sufficiently "extreme."

Your first paragraph certainly describe how is should pan out, or at least how the Maine Democratic Party should try to play it if they have any semblance of competence, even if the list of potential replacements looks more like the waiver wire than a murderer's row. As for whether the replacement can beat Collins, it's a tall order, but Polymarket certainly regards it as a possibility, as the odds were never in Collins's favor. I tend to reserve judgment on these things though. As to whether the candidate will be forgotten after a loss, I don't know why you think anyone would bring it up again, since most losing candidates are relegated to the toilet of history once the concession speech is over. For the same reason, I don't understand the obsession that erupted over the whole DNC 2024 postmortem. The people criticizing the DNC over this aren't doing because they have a genuine desire to see Democratic candidates perform better in the future, but because they want to see the party officially berate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This might have its uses as a piece of political theater, but the idea that any lessons learned would apply to future elections is absurd.

Generally speaking, when it comes to party politics, people seem to have a notion that it's like a hockey team, where the coaches and GM all get together and look at the draft board and the free agent market and pick players to slot in on their team. What's happening in Maine now and what happened nationally in 2024 is similar to that, but it's a rare exception to the normal course of business. Donald Trump does not have the power he currently has because the RNC brain trust was looking to change direction. Joe Crowley didn't get bounced from his House seat because the New York Democratic Committee felt that a young Latina socialist would be a better fit for the Bronx.

What's happening in Maine now and what happened nationally in 2024 is similar to that, but it's a rare exception to the normal course of business.

I don't know. It's starting to look like a pattern. Do we even know if Maine Democratic primary voters wanted Platner to drop out?

Republicans don't do this. Todd Akin, Roy Moore, and Mark Robinson all stuck it out to the bitter end. Occasionally losing a winnable race is worth it to maintain the democratic legitimacy of the party and to capture the occasional lightning in a bottle (imagine if Trump had been forced out in 2016).

I don't know. It's starting to look like a pattern. Do we even know if Maine Democratic primary voters wanted Platner to drop out?

Republicans don't do this.

I wouldn't go that far, but it does seem like the Democrats have this procedure where (1) decisions are made by a kind of consensus-building process in chat groups; social media posts; etc.; and (2) those decisions are then enforced.

I honestly do not believe that the decision to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris was made by some cabal in a smoke-filled back room. Rather, I think it was an emergent process, kind of like the decision as to what style of clothing will be fashionable next year.

I think that since the Left has a great deal of control over cultural institutions in the United States, especially media companies, the Democrats have great access to the tools necessary for consensus-building. Which can be used to generate quite a lot of support for otherwise unpopular ideas. Which is can be useful for advancing their agenda, but can also be harmful since the US is more or less a democracy. Unpopular ideas can cost you a great deal of votes and it can be difficult to change course since nobody in particular is steering the ship.

Republicans don't do this

Republicans have absolutely pressure candidates to step aside. They've also pressured sitting office-holders to resign (and in one recent case, expelled a sitting member who refused to resign) over scandals. Akin and Moore weren't majorly pressured to step aside because their core supporters didn't really think they did anything wrong. (AFAIK Robinson was pressured, but simply refused to bow out)

Moore at the very least was strongly pressured, he was just crazy and oblivious.

That's fair, and obviously the scandal did actually bite him with the Alabama electorate. The same is true for Akin in MO, though I don't know enough about the politics of 2012 Missouri (despite living there at the time :V) to know how much of that was the scandal versus other factors. The point I am trying to get at is that the GOP can and does pressure individuals to step aside for a variety of reasons.

That's the point. The Republican Party apparatus does not have the power (either de facto or de jure) to remove candidates from the ballot. The Democratic Party apparatus does. All of Trump's influence over congress is directly mediated by the voters through primary elections. The Republican Party is more democratic than the Democratic Party.

You misunderstand me. The Republican Party has successfully pressured candidates to resign. It has successfully pressured sitting congressmen to resign. I don't feel confident enough to say if Robinson was an outlier or not, but I can observe, on the converse, that there are examples of the same pattern on the Democratic side, e.g. Menendez.

All of Trump's influence over congress is directly mediated by the voters through primary elections.

That is... wildly untrue.

But what other levers do they hold?

Sic the CRS on him? Arrange for a boating accident?

Get him a quiet sinecure at some mid-tier university or NGO to disappear under fat stacks of cash?

For comparison, there's Katie Hill from 2019. She resigned due to a scandal involving leaked photos on a wife swapping site revealing an... affair? throuple? with a 22 year old staffer who reported to her. She even sports her own Nazi tattoo (NSFW).

Her sinecure is with a California homeless services nonprofit, as CEO.

(The homeless services nonprofit work is probably the most morally questionable thing she's done, in my book.)

She was the CEO of a homeless nonprofit before she was in Congress, so I don't know if that job can be considered a sinecure. It also pays less than she made in Congress, and Low Angeles isn't exactly a low cost of living area. If she were at a think tank or doing speaking tours I could see your point, but not this.

It's an Iron Cross. She probably got it because she wanted something edgy but didn't have the chutzpah to go for a swastika.

But the Iron Cross looks so cool. I understand Platner's skull and crossbones was particularly the nazi version, but there's no such thing with the Iron cross, it's always been the same shape.

Still, insisting that the Iron Cross is Napoleonic German military regalia, or that the totenkopf is equally understood as a jolly roger, is very much like saying, "it's ephebophilia." Yes, technically correct, but not convincing.

Modern German military medals look sufficiently similar to the Iron Cross that I am not sure you could tell them apart in the context of a tattoo. Fundamentally, it is a German-coded symbol of martial virtue, and is mildly suspect for the same good reasons that German militarism has been ever since 1945.

In an Anglosphere context, the Iron Cross is a symbol of anti-establishment-coded martial virtue and is used by people like outlaw biker gangs before being adopted by Motorhead and then spreading around heavy metal culture.

I'll have you know that my swastika tattoo has nothing to do with the Nazis, but is a sign of my admiration for the Finnish Air Force!

Related, but it's a shame more edgelords don't go for Adolf Galland's nose art as a tattoo... Mickey Mouse with a gun & axe, smoking a cigar, is too awesome to languish in the history books.

I just really like Kipling, ok.

Apparently you can rent out his house in Vermont. Looks pretty cozy.

"an Iron Cross in isolation (i.e., without a superimposed swastika or without other accompanying hate symbols) cannot be determined to be a hate symbol"

(the ADL, as quoted on WP.)

I will grant you (and @The_Nybbler) that in a German political context, an iron cross is just a replacement for a swastika which will not land you in legal trouble. But there is a difference between carrying one on a banner through Berlin and having one tattooed beside your pussy. The latter seems more likely to signal biker/metal chick than Nazi bride.

Likewise, the generic skull and crossbones are widely used and nobody cares about them at all. Tattoo GHS06, U+2620, U+1F571, or all kinds of skulls realistic or fantastical with bones behind or below them, and people with probably think you are metal, goth, or perhaps punk. It is only the variant used by the SS which is considered Problematic.

Of course, with Platner, the story that he got it in Croatia and had no clue what it represented seems likely.

Of course, with Platner, the story that he got it in Croatia and had no clue what it represented seems likely.

I could potentially believe that he didn't know what it represented when he first got it, but the NYT reported that he definitely knew for years afterwards:

from https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html:

Mr. Platner, she said, knew when they were dating years ago that the tattoo was a Nazi symbol, and that he called it “my Totenkopf.” “I would never have known what that was,” she said. “He would joke about it being a Nazi tattoo.”

An iron cross tattoo below the waist, especially for someone Hill's age, makes me think she was a slutty skater chick in the early/mid 2000s. It says more about her consumption of Rockstar Energy than her views on race.

I even remember seeing not particularly edgy punk girls wearing SS runes. It was a different time.

The Dems presumably have access to a good-sized professional network of lobby organizations, activists, and businesses. There are also many political positions that are much less visible to the public.

Since the rape accusations have not been proven, wouldn't the standard political play here be to have him resign, wait for things to die down, and then in a few months hire him at some cushy position outside of media spotlight?

If the stick is that his name will continue to be dragged through the gutter, then this seems like a pretty good deal to me.

The Dems presumably have access to a good-sized professional network of lobby organizations, activists, and businesses. There are also many political positions that are much less visible to the public.

Usually but this guy was an outsider they wanted to get rid of.

Sure, but that does not mean it would not be in their best interests to buy him off now.

If the machine can credibly offer him a cushy job if he drops out of the race for health reasons, and credibly threaten that they will lose his seat rather than endorse him, then it may well be in his best interests to take up their offer.

On a somewhat related note, I remember reading one of Steve Sailer’s posts ages ago in which he made a claim that was only tangentially related to his main argument that the Democrats’ best chance of winning the presidency is by fielding as a candidate an older African American man with a military background who’s from a working class or lower-middle class background and is center-left. If we accept this as valid I guess it means that the main disadvantage Platner has in this case is that he’s white.

How do you even arrive at something like this when it was clear he was doing fine until the rape accusations started coming out. Even the Nazi tattoos and his child murdering mercenary background these people were okay with.

His whiteness is probably a big hindrance in any case.

In Maine? Maine is 90% white.

On a somewhat related note, I remember reading one of Steve Sailer’s posts ages ago in which he made a claim that was only tangentially related to his main argument that the Democrats’ best chance of winning the presidency is by fielding as a candidate an older African American man with a military background who’s from a working class or lower-middle class background and is center-left. If we accept this as valid I guess it means that the main disadvantage Platner has in this case is that he’s white.

Also that he isn't lower-middle class (his father was a lawyer and his grandfather was a starchitect with his own Wikipedia article) and he isn't centre-left (he was explicitly the far-left factional candidate in the primary, supported by the usual suspects). If you think that being uncouth in public makes someone "centre-left" and pro-working class despite their support for open borders and trannies, you don't understand working-class politics.

I most certainly don't think that.

If he thinks Steve Sailer is offering a realistic model of the Democratic Party, he probably didn’t understand working-class politics anyway.

Sailer plays to his audience, which is very much inclined to frame everything as racialist spoils systems. He’s going to ascribe that to the Democrats no matter what they say.

Are you telling me the Dems don’t advertise racial spoils?

Uh, I don’t think I said such.

Botond described Sailer’s model as

the Democrats’ best chance of winning the presidency is by fielding as a candidate an older African American man with a military background who’s from a working class or lower-middle class background and is center-left.

I think this is wrong, and that more or less none of those categories matter if the guy runs on vibes. Democrats have awful, cringe-inducing vibes. They need to present an aura of charismatic competency to contrast with the Trump campaign. No, I don’t have much confidence that will happen.

But I guess I think claims of racialist spoils are overstated, too. Shit’s still politically toxic.

But I guess I think claims of racialist spoils are overstated, too. Shit’s still politically toxic.

Which is why there's an entire industry to manufacture consent for it - the entire battle against "systemic racism" is a justification to provide racial spoils even when it doesn't make sense. It's why "white supremacy" never ends even as white hegemony is ending and there's always a new calumny - like the claim that black babies are more likely to die under/because of white doctors, which was then cited by KBJ in a SCOTUS judgment on affirmative action - to allow calls for more "justice"

That or deny it's happening. I suspect this is part of the reason affirmative action is both pervasive and polls very badly: the public dislikes it, and they don't know enough to know how much of a finger is on the scale (so they take claims like "it's a tie-breaker" seriously). As a result, they don't think it's necessary. Admins know better.

You said: Sailer plays to his audience, which is very much inclined to frame everything as racialist spoils systems. He’s going to ascribe that to the Democrats no matter what they say.

The last sentence implies that the democrats don’t do racial spoils systems.

But they do. What do you think supporting affirmative action is? Or saying you will pick a certain color for scotus or VP? Why defend minority majority districts? There use euphemisms but at its core it is racial spoils

no matter what they say

I chose “say” in hopes of avoiding this exact conversation. What people say and do are not, in fact, the same thing.

But I suppose that was foolish of me. If I claim Sailer’s audience is wrong about Democrats, I’m basically signing up to defend anything Democrats have done since LBJ. I think this is a dirty motte and bailey, but one that sees a lot of use, so I ought to be more explicit.

  • Affirmative action is not (currently!) a spoils system because expanding it is outside the Overton window. It’s a decent candidate, though, and sort of worked as one historically.
  • Filling leadership roles by racial profiling is a spoils system and an embarrassment.
  • Minority-majority districts could be spoils, except packing and cracking are also in play, so they show up no matter who controls the legislature. See Texas for example.

The motte is that Democrats absolutely do things which implement or at least hint at a racial spoils system. This is obviously true.

The bailey comes when using those things as evidence for a specific model of the Democratic Party, one where the minorities are all ganging up to shake down white Americans. This is senseless and hyperbolic. It assumes away the prospect of white people choosing to benefit non-whites, because that’s how Sailer thinks.

I actually think Sailer would include white people (women specifically) that have a large out group favorable bias as consistent with dem racial spoils

Democrats do not need to project charismatic competency. That shit seems fake. Look at Trump- he changed national politics by seeming like your drunk uncle at thanksgiving(after he won the powerball), because that's what Trump is. Bill Clinton seemed like your mildly sleazy brother in law you who always had a beer for when the women were getting too overbearing. These guys are recognizable as real- but not especially competent. Our politics don't reward that. If we cared about competence there'd be a bunch of accountants and engineers getting elected, instead of lawyers and car dealership owners.

That’s exactly why.

A long time ago, one of our users wrote about a sneer-state-debate theory of politics. The idea was that high-level bureaucrats are pretty good at debating. That works against other bureaucrats and against their natural prey, the idealists. But it leaves them completely unprepared for a sufficiently charismatic asshole. Somebody who can just show up, ignore the home turf, and shove that nerd in a locker.

This is how Trump wiped the Republican field and eventually Hillary. In doing so, he basically realigned the party under his “sneer” strategy. It didn’t matter if they had a working plan so long as the other guy’s plan looked worse.

The Democrats absolutely walked into it, too. First they tried debating Trump on his policies. Loser move. Then they experimented with sneering, which was never particularly convincing. They didn’t have the charisma, and Trump had a serious first-mover advantage, anyway.

So what actually works against a “sneer” strategy? AshLael suggested it was back to the idealists. Run somebody with a winning smile who can just “state” a simple position. It doesn’t have to be well-considered; the other guy is never going to call you on it.

I always thought this was plausible. Maybe that was just a sense that Obama would have wiped the floor with Trump, but I felt like a positive vision would preempt a lot of Trump’s support. Frame him as the grumpy old fossil instead of the dynamic one.

But then the Democrats shambled over to Biden. If there was a central vision for 2020, it was “anything but Trump.” COVID made that extra-appealing, winning exactly one election. By the time Trump got back from Butler, it was completely out of gas.

Thing is, Trump will be out of the picture in ‘28. He has no obvious successor, but there is a bumper crop of populists and pundits who want to sneer their way into politics. I think Democrats could clean house if they dug up someone with enough style to play the “state” card. Ditch the baggage, pretend it’s not about Trump. Campaign on single-payer healthcare or UBI. Something else with a one-line explanation. Take no questions on the details.

Each day I find it slightly less likely that they’ll manage it.

I'd just add that Platner was seen as a left factional candidate from the get-go. He was recruited by a set of campaign consultants who worked for Sanders and then Fetterman. The Democratic Establishment candidate was Janet Mills, the 78 year old Governor with a 51% approval rating. The insider take I've read is that most of the young up and coming Dems in Maine wanted to duck Susan Collins and opted for lateral or incremental career moves (Hannah Pingee going for governor) so as to stay on track rather than running in the primary.

If you follow left vs center left online debates every new indication of Platner's poor judgement that leaked was declared an establishment ratfuck and when he overcame them to win the primary this was celebrated as the end of "HR lady" politics by Matt Stoller (iirc, not totally sure it was him). Today Ryan Grim was still fighting about how dishonest the media was for omitting that Platner's accusers sent a message that she needed a glute massage before telling him not to come over.

The establishment never wanted Platner, once he won the primary they were stuck defending him because they don't want to hurt his chances of beating Collins. With the assault allegation they're convinced he's going to lose no matter what so then they have to do everything they can to force him out. If we're being conspiratorial though why leak this stuff after the primary, but before the deadline for changing the ballot line. If the establishment had the allegations in their back pocket ready to leak to the medi they could have dropped it earlier and gotten Janet Mills vs. Susan Collins like they wanted.

If we're being conspiratorial though why leak this stuff after the primary, but before the deadline for changing the ballot line.

It's because Platner was dropping in the polls. The consensus among Democrats in the press was that the accusations against Platner were baseless up until the exact week he stopped polling ahead of Susan Collins.

If we're being conspiratorial though why leak this stuff after the primary, but before the deadline for changing the ballot line.

The post-mortem on this is going to be interesting if it ever becomes publicly available, the number of people I've seen on the left and the right in the establishment who note that everyone knew about this stuff (including the NYT) is unreal.

the end of "HR lady" politics

Too soon indeed.

Never again back a Democratic candidate that isn't an HR lady because a heterosexual male with any semblance of sexual history is at risk of getting MeToo'd just before the election.

Platner's accusers sent a message that she needed a glute massage before telling him not to come over

There's a reason why none of these accusations are ever about something that happened last night, and there's always some string of enthusiastic text messages that are totally at odds with the way the accuser currently remembers things. Yet we're expected to accept unverified SA allegations influencing politics and woe be on he who dares question the word of Her Holiness, The Victim™.

This guy is probably the most obvious sexual assaulter we've had in recent memory, even more obvious than some of the people who have previously down weird sex stuff.

The guy has posted about fantasizing about raping and killing people...and joined the military to do that (in how own words!), claimed to be a huge WWII buff but got a Nazi tattoo, has significant infidelity problems that aren't contested, and I'm not even sure that's all of it.

Hearing that he was a rapist or a sex pest is more unsurprising than anything.

Would you be shocked if President grab-her-by-the-pussy is outed as a rapist tomorrow? And would you be shocked if those allegations were then found to be fabricated next week? There's always nebulous "signs" that seem obvious in hindsight, especially when characterised with a more "flexible" personal ethics than what's normal. But the allegations need to stand on their own legs as well. Or we could simply chuck legal procedure, cede to the court of public opinion (read: mob rule) and do only what's optically feasible.

According to reddit Trump is a rapist. Adjudicated civilly liable for rape or whatever phrasing they use. We're far past that in the minds of his opponents.

As another user pointed out, Democracy is already "mob rule" and nothing will stop the Collins campaign and conservative media from repeating the allegations against him. And nothing will stop hesitant voters from changing their minds when they hear about it. This isn't a criminal court, this is an election. If you want to talk about "proper procedure" in the court of public opinion, then it should go both ways and the politico article should not have even been allowed.

It's like my government mandated friend issue, there is a fundamental different between the government organization and the private citizen/organization. The government can not (or at least should not) arrest you for the content of your speech, meanwhile I can kick you out of my house for any reason I want. In the same way the government shouldn't jail someone without due process and high standards of evidence, but I am free to judge you off whatever standard I please, including explicitly unfair and biased ones.

Democracy is already "mob rule" and nothing will stop the Collins campaign and conservative media from repeating the allegations against him

Certainly, I have many reservations with involving the "court of public opinion" before the allegations are formally investigated and some degree of plausibility is established. It's a problem I don't have a workable solution for, short of CCP style censorship. My contention is, we're supposed to accept that unproven sexual allegations alone should be able to dictate political affairs, but not ask critical questions.

but I am free to judge you off whatever standard I please, including explicitly unfair and biased ones.

In practice, if this person was later found to be innocent and had an otherwise good chance of winning the elections, haven't you basically shot your own foot? There are literally no cultural antibodies against situations like this. At least the GOP can defend their own.

My contention is, we're supposed to accept that unproven sexual allegations alone should be able to dictate political affairs, but not ask critical questions.

They're gonna dictate political affairs even if people don't believe them much because it tilts the scales.

Maybe you think X = 55 favorable and Y = 50 favorable, so you would vote X. However X now has a serious llegation against him that you think is 30% true, and a less serious allegation against him that you think is 70% true. Maybe the serious allegation at full is a -15 and the less serious is a -8. So X gets a -4.5 and a -5.6 respectively, putting them below Y and you now prefer Y.

It is perfectly reasonable that even not proven allegations if even somewhat evidenced will impact voters. And again, nothing would stop the Collins campaign from repeating these allegations. Nothing would stop the Collins campaign from repeating and finding other allegations either, as we know was part of their plan and why they're panicking now that Planter seems to be dropping out.

Would you be shocked if President grab-her-by-the-pussy is outed as a rapist tomorrow? And would you be shocked if those allegations were then found to be fabricated next week?

Thee number of allegations that fell through against President grab-her-by-the-pussy is precisely why I would be shocked if Trump were outed as a rapist tomorrow. If there were strong, credible evidence of rape, it would have been raised by now. Lord knows it would have been much easier than burning the Democrat's own credibility via resorting to novel legal theories and banal hypocrisies.

But the reason for that shock is that convincing evidence tomorrow only come in the context of a long history of disproven or unsupported allegations yesteryear. If there is convincing evidence, I would be shocked for it to come out now, and not earlier in the better part of a decade of effort to destroy Trump.

By contrast, I am not shocked when a first-run would-be congress critter's dirty laundry starts to appear during their first run, precisely because it is their first run and they've never been subject to stricter public scrutiny before. With stricture scrutiny comes the low hanging fruits being easily noticed, and low hanging fruits give a starting point to find the less-obvious higher hanging fruits from the same tree.

Or we could simply chuck legal procedure, cede to the court of public opinion (read: mob rule) and do only what's optically feasible.

I hate to break it to you, but the method the US has for filling political offices relies substantially on public opinion, or 'mob rule', as you phrased it.

Criminal procedure requirements apply to criminal penalties only. Your partner may still dump you on evidence of infidelity which would not be conclusive enough for a jury to send you to the gallows, simply because there is no due process requirement for dumping a partner.

Likewise, there is no motion to suppress testimony in political campaigns, because not getting elected to the US Senate is not a violation of your fundamental rights. In the end, it is up to the sovereign to decide how much any allegations disqualify you or not.

I'm personally of the opinion that Trump has probably had sexual encounters that would be considered rape by median 2020 peak woke values of such, however I don't think he's likely to have committed anything especially vile by standards of his immediate cultural standards. I'm sure Platner got laid a bunch for tweaking the right signals that'd kill it with a Tumblr chicklit enthusiast, but 'manly takechargey man' is a role that is always going to be dancing on the line of consent. Especially when consent can be assigned and retracted retroactively at any time for any reason

Would you be shocked if President grab-her-by-the-pussy is outed as a rapist tomorrow? And would you be shocked if those allegations were then found to be fabricated next week?

No, and no, respectively, and that's the fault of his brag-about-sexual-assault behavior and of his attackers' throw-mud-and-see-what-sticks behavior, so neither of my "no"s is wrong in either the positive or normative sense.

There's always nebulous "signs" that seem obvious in hindsight

Are there, though? Politician is a pretty awful job for people who aren't attracted to power, which might correlate with sexual force kinks and probably correlates with being willing to lie for power, but even vague signs aren't "always" there. It's not a wacky coincidence that we've been talking about Platner pretty exclusively before this final straw. Cory Booker might be a contributor to federal gridlock, but do you think he might be a rapist? John Cornyn might lie about how partisan his Supreme Court confirmation behavior was, but do you think he'd lie to frame someone for rape?

In this case in particular, we're in theory talking about a candidate who was head-hunted by party insiders, not somebody whose drive to power led him to start a campaign on his own initiative. If we're already widening the search that proactively, couldn't we just have found someone with no Nazi tattoos, no public statements of bloodlust, no reports of abuse from exes, no violations of wedding vows, and no accounts on creepy sites famed for underaged sexting? This is not actually a big ask! There are loads of normal people out there, some of whom would probably agree to run for Senator anyway!

Shocked? No.

But Trump is vulgar, being a sex pest makes sense, rapist maybe less so but not shocking. This guy is HEINOUS. He bragged about having thoughts of raping men for dominance, like it makes more sense than not!

Vague, nebulous post-hoc signs are a problems but this guy is not that!

If you had to make a most Sus guy in a lab it would look like this guy.

I followed it up with another question.

And would you be shocked if those allegations were then found to be fabricated next week?

You know why MeToo ran out of mileage?

The signal-to-noise ratio of the allegations was probably the worst we've ever seen at the time. Becky accuses Brad on twitter, incident happened somewhere in LA several years ago so no evidence exists, she was super scared so no police complaint was filed, you know the drill. And she's definitely not lying because "you don't lie about these things and it's hard to lie about it rape".

Except, it's the digital age. It's never been easier to lie! People lie, casually and often, about far more outlandish things than SA. And the online mob will reliably follow her word to lynch Brad.

You can't reason with the mob, why allow them to get involved at all?

There are people who want Trump gone, we know that. We have precedent within the decade for smear campaigns (see Russiagate) to delegitimise his Presidency. An unverified rape charge at a politically critical moment? Is that not Sus?

You're confusing MeToo with the campus rape allegations. I'm not aware of single MeToo incident that involved a single individual making accusations about an isolated instance of sexual misconduct that happened decades ago. The closest was Brett Kavanaugh, but even that isn't a great instance because it was a presumed attempted rape and it didn't prevent his Supreme Court confirmation. The New York Times did a postmortem in the fall of 2018 documenting over 200 incidents, the overwhelming majority of which involved some kind of workplace harassment. The perpetrators often admitted the accusations or at least to some kind of vague wrongdoing "I apologize for any inappropriate behavior...", and most of the cases involved multiple accusers, witnesses, or some other kind of corroboration.

I'm not aware of single MeToo incident that involved a single individual making accusations about an isolated instance of sexual misconduct that happened decades ago.

I said several years ago, not decades ago. Meaning a large enough window for people to forget or misremember key details about the incident and for key pieces of evidence to no longer exist. Aziz Ansari comes to mind, and he even apologised to her afterwards. There was also Jeremy Soule in the games industry, accusations surfaced 10 years after the alleged incident and he went off-grid afterwards. Chris Avellone was accused of sexual misconduct that allegedly took place in undisclosed time periods, two of his accusers retracted the accusations and settled a libel suit outside of court. I don't know if this counts, but Depp v Heard involved alleged incidents (including sexual) spanning years.

it didn't prevent his Supreme Court confirmation

Because the GOP is understood to be on the "man" side of gender politics, which allows for presumption of innocence (not just legally, but socially and professionally). If he was a Democrat, he would've been dropped like a hot potato.

documenting over 200 incidents, the overwhelming majority of which involved some kind of workplace harassment

I don't doubt the stories NYT picked up and ran with actually met some degree of plausibility to formally report, but MeToo was an ambient enforcement of social pressure to listen and believe countless stories with varying levels of believability. We have to just accept that misconduct allegations could surface at any point and we should take every one of them very seriously, but never seriously ask critical questions.

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Two things can be true at the same time.

MeToo involved a bunch of bullshit.

This guy is by his own uncontested words a huge shit bag in multiple ways, including in ways that would make you think he's the likely sort to commit sexual assault.

The contested stuff is just a cherry on top.

Additional process information includes the fact that this stuff was out their for months and then held back by various individuals, it wasn't fabricated right now, and the fact that the people who vetted him found and knew about a lot of this and admitted it.

It's blowing my mind that people are defending this guy.

Progressives are defending this guy because Platner's just the top image in hello_human_resources.jpg

I defend this guy because I want a candidate (who has politics I don't even agree with) to win an election regardless of how much female-privilege-associated (re: "consent violations") dirt appears, so that people stop listening to women when they invoke it.

We are not the same.

(What your mind is being blown by are conservatives who don't understand this, so they're all busy debating whether it was or wasn't consensual because that's the framework they use to Protect Women. They don't understand that the entire concept of "consent" was destructive from the start and that women don't need that protection in an equal world.)

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I mean I agree it's sus and this wouldn't likely be platformed as enthusiastically if it wasn't otherwise convenient to do so, but also Platner's whole existence is prettymuch 'overly horny man who tiptoes on the line of consent' and with that established it's hardly a massive stretch that he's fallen across the foul line at some point. Especially with modern conceptions of consent where it's entirely vibe-based and can be switched on and off retroactively whenever suits.

I don't know how many red coded men there are in Maine, but I've observed the backlash against #MeToo from those circles morph into support for anyone who gets accused of sexual harassment. Platner might have had a chance with that sort of crowd if he fronts a bit more tough and masculine, which should not have been outside of his wheelhouse. And considering his opposite number Susan Collins is a woman, he might have been able to steal some votes. But now that he's out... eh.

All in all I'd code this as the Democrats in Maine coming out on bottom. Any hardline Platner fan will walk away from this scorned. But considering that Susan Collins is a staunch supporter of Israel, it might not even count as a loss in the eyes of Liberal Zionists on the establishment left.

I think the problem with that is that up until the allegations surfaced, he was throwing those people under a bus.

He had some previous posts on Reddit back in 2013 talking about victims needing to take responsibility for his actions, but when confronted he immediately backed down, said he was "myopic", and said it was never the victim's fault, always the aggressor.

If he had consistently pushed for a perspective of mutual responsibility there might have been some space to rally around "the situation is more nuanced than that, as it often is" and cross the aisle, but his own stated philosophy, applied to him, means that he has no defense. He was the aggressor, so by his own words it is entirely on him.

but when confronted he immediately backed down

So lame. That's like the most rookie political mistake in the book.

It would make sense to back these if it was part of his general political plan, but I don't think he was intending to come at the topic from that angle: he genuinely did believe the Democrat party line of "the aggressor is always at fault", or at the very least had cynically decided to take the generic Democrat line.

All he ever was was a "tough guy" wrapped around a generic Democrat party platform, so if he started bucking that trend and going "actually don't believe all women" earlier, it's likely that he would have just lost his voter base, without a corresponding gain elsewhere. The media would have revved up on how he was basically a rapist, women would have been uncertain about him (with later stuff like that Republican ex-girlfriend gossip hitting much harder, even if we imagine a world where the current news stuff didn't happen), and he almost certainly would have just lost the primary.

without a corresponding gain elsewhere

Well, he could have defected to the Republicans. As mentioned upthread, there’s a large enough contingent of Red Tribers who reflexively doubt any SA allegations, if only because they perceive #MeToo and “Believe All Women” as Blue Tribe cuckery, that he would receive a hero’s welcome.

I addressed that above as well.

Graham Platner was running on essentially a generic Democrat party platform, and that's mostly what people were excited about, taking the same old Democratic talking points but with a "manly man" that could deliver them in a new form that might attract different demographics.

If he defects to the Republicans, he's either going to retain his generic Democrat positions or more likely switch to Republican ones.

If he retains his positions:

  • For Democrats, he's got all the problems he does now with the added problem of the R next to his name. "Vote Blue no matter who" people are going to not vote for him because he's not blue, and people who previously supported him might worry that he's going to change his positions.
  • For Republicans, he holds no positions in common with them: they're not going to vote for him JUST for the rape allegations when he's otherwise their opposition.

If he switches to Republican positions:

  • If what Democrats really wanted was to vote for a tough guy ex-military sort that holds generic Republican positions, they've undoubtedly had the opportunity before now. He has no appeal for them whatsoever: he's not going to drive their favored positions forward, and he's not a cultural match. Some small fraction might suspect he's just outright lying and will swap back to Democrat positions, but that's an incredibly risky move. Plus he still has rape allegations.
  • Similarly, he holds no special benefit for the Republicans: his positions are generic, his style is tremendously common among Republicans, and he's got the added burden of the allegations. If such a candidate was going to win an election for the Republicans, they would have already have found one, and likely one with less baggage. They might not actively oppose his conversion, maybe go "see how bad it is on the Democrat side?" but they're not going to promote him or be associated with him.

There's maybe some middle ground where he tries to only switch on a few limited positions, but that's not going to fly for either party. At least for white men, the Democrats aren't going to allow deviation on core party tenets, and for Republicans an 80% defection where the 20% focuses on gender relations isn't going to draw a lot of people. There may be some "communist incel" demographic that this might work for, but that's not a significant number of votes.

My belief is that theoretically, Platner could have survived this, he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump to keep saying the same thing "the establishment is pulling all the tricks in the book to stop me"/"these are all lies by the same people already lying to you"/etc.

Dropping out of the race is not an admission of guilt in a court of law, but it's certainly an admission of guilt in the court of opinions.

I do like to comment on your use of the word "democratic establishment". Like all big groupings of people, there are always intra-group divisions. Which each new scandal, the amount of people within the "democratic establishment" willing to actively and vocally support Platner becomes only nominally silent support (for solidarity, out of group loyalty, etc.), and a certain amount of nominally silent support became actively and vocally opposed to Platner. The process in reverse is just called momentum. Like Obama, like Trump, like Mamdani, successful politicians are able to get those "in the base" that actively and vocally oppose them to become nominally silent support, and those that used to nominally silent support becomes actively and vocally support.

So anyway, when you're surrounded by people who tell you how bad you are, at some point, somebody breaks. Or maybe someone close to you break, or whatever. If he was wrongly accused, or believed he is completely correct in what he did, it still certainly does take a certain amount of self-conviction to stay on your path.

he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump to keep saying the same thing "the establishment is pulling all the tricks in the book to stop me"/"these are all lies by the same people already lying to you"/etc.

Platner didn't stick it to the establishment because he's not actually anti-establishment. He's just the next-generation model of Democratic cipher candidate managed by Democratic consultants to whisper to Democratic focus groups. His oyster farm is all pretend and his appeal to blue collar voters is imaginary -- Platner's appeal is to white college-educated Dems who want to believe they appeal to blue collar voters. The fantasy isn't really about beating the establishment. The fantasy is winning. The fantasy is that Platner can speak to this class of voters Democrats don't know how to reach but know they need to reach to win. Platner's appeal wasn't that he could stick it to Janet Mills, Platner's appeal was that he could stick it to Susan Collins. As that fantasy evaporated, the Dems dumped him.

Trump was genuinely an anti-establishment candidate and they genuinely pulled all the tricks in the book to stop him. Republican officials refused to endorse Trump, withheld donor networks and infrastructure and cash, denounced him on TV and refused to cooperate with his campaign. Even after he got into office Republican officials undermined Trump in every possible way -- cooperating with investigations against Trump, McCain's Obamacare betrayal, leaks, moles in his staff and inner circle, denunciations from sitting Republican senators, the whole nine yards. If rumors are to believed lots of them wanted to impeach Trump but were scared of what the voters would do to them if they did. And Trump, clearly, believed his own pitch because he felt that his campaign against the establishment was more important than his reputation after accusations were made against him.

Well, it's more important to understand what Platner thinks of himself. You are absolutely correct that a certain group of Democratic operatives/consultants went and find Platner specifically to be anti-Democratic-establishment and appeal to blue collar workers. But I believe that individuals can take responsibilities for their own actions. Platner decided to enter the race, Platner decided to drop out of it, all the consulting was at best just influence. I do believe Platner believes in himself as anti-establishment, I do believe Platner thinks he is the kind of anti-establishment that is not like Trump, I do believe that Platner feels a modicum of guiltiness or "for the cause" or shame or whatever that led him to drop out. It's the fact that he drops out led me to believe he is not non-guilty/shameless. I don't want to conflate being anti-establishment with non-guilty/shameless, they're two different things.

And by extension, yeah, you are also correct that Trump is an anti-establishment figure (with, to me, establishment being the old Republican side that was phased out between 2018 and 2022). That is only related, but not foundational, to whether he is guilty of anything (which I think he does) and also of whether Trump himself feels guilty of anything (which I certainly think he doesn't). To me, they are all related together. Trump is shameless, thinks himself non-guilty, and therefore never back down from establishment attacks. To me, Trump is has been unethical on many things, and where is the line between unethical and illegal I don't know but I would suspect he crossed it before on some of those many things. But being anti-establishment and then won, Trump also has high amount of political power (like you said about how Republican establishments are afraid of impeaching him), so maybe figuring out whether he stepped over the line or not becomes unclear. It's like "Mao was 70% correct and 30% incorrect", the 30% incorrect was pretty bad, but for now he's still revered for the 70%. And maybe in the long river of history the public opinion on these two figures might change, but for now it is what it is.

he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump

But Trump is backed by a party that's typically on the "man" side of politics. Republicans stood firm on Brett Kavanaugh's right to presumption of innocence, and his innocence generally, because their politics allows it (but only for their own).

A rape accusation, true or not, is just terrible optics. And that is my biggest contention with MeToo.

Anyone from any point of your dating/sexual history can reinterpret all old memories to reach for an inflated level of sexual trauma to meet some fuzzy definition of rape, and post their story online. And every time, it happened more than a few years ago, no evidence exists, no police complaint was filed, you (the reader) have no means of verifying it, but you have to performatively take the "victim" side anyway because it's better optics.

Yes, there is this entire possibility that she could be misremembering things or even straight up lying to take down this male public figure, which again you (the reader) have no means of knowing for sure, and yes, it should probably be investigated first. But do NOT ruin the optics by saying that out loud. You DON'T want to be the victim blamer™.

Ehhh, I'm ok with asking a bit more of public figures in terms of a "clean image". I suspect it's true that politicians are more "consensually clumsy" than the average person, and I also suspect that different tiers of politicians have different tiers of "consent clumsiness" (like what, 7 of the last 10 presidents have had some kind of sexual assault allegations?), but the mass majority of active politicians aren't getting accused of sexual assault. Maybe yeah what we need is a national conversation about how to attract better people into politics. But politics being what it is and what it's for, we're always going to get more dark triad personalities, so it's a cultural thing of how much a society tolerates vs the objectives it wants to achieve. It's like how Americans do not like adultery but the French are very tolerable of it.

PS: consent clumsiness is a spectrum, the other end is active consent disregard.

Regardless of how true the accusations are, they were tanking his chances in the election by a significant margin and that's assuming that there isn't even more stuff that's going to come out that he is aware of and now realizes will happen. The Dem's chances of winning have skyrocketed back up both right after the accusation where it was assumed he would drop out, and now again after he's officially done it. Politics has deteriorated significantly in the past decade, but there's still some standards left thankfully and a significant chunk of voters don't want to turn out for that. They're willing to tolerate one or two mishaps if there's plausible deniability, especially stuff they might have made themselves (as I covered here, most people obviously would not have recognized the tattoo so they're more forgiving of it) but sexual assault allegations isn't one of them. Most of the voters aren't imagining themselves accidently raping someone as a youthful mistake.

If Platner has any concerns about his idealogical goals, dropping out and trying to push for a replacement that he agrees with on a lot of topics might be the best way for him to achieve them. And it seems he understands this, given that he was making deals on selecting his replacement.

This is all why Republicans in this thread will post, and not without justification, that the real scandal is that he was losing, nothing else mattered to the party at all.

This is all why Republicans in this thread will post, and not without justification, that the real scandal is that he was losing, nothing else mattered to the party at all.

But he was losing instead of winning compared to Generic Dem Replacement because a significant number of Dem voters care about the scandals.

So if that was the reason, the logic becomes circular "they only care because he is losing, but he's only losing because they care".

That is certainly a way to spin it, but scandals and polling don't line up perfectly enough to make that a strong theory. It is equally plausible that he was polling like generic Democrat when the populace didn't know him well enough to make the distinction, but as they learned more, partially the scandals, but also about his positions, the general populace like him less. One of his softer parts in the polling, after all, is non college white men, which is what the eggheads that recruited him thought hed be strong with.

The timeline also doesn't show gradual erosion of trust from party elites, rather a cascade that is centered around the polls being definitive at that same time a 2nd rape accusation allegation pops out (with the victim also seemingly previously motivated not to come forward for partisan reasons, its no stretch to see why that switched at the same time). All the party elites, we basically fine having a nazi tatoo having, reddit crazy posting, homophobic gay rape home invasion fantasizing, port a potty masturbating, serial domestic abuser, one time sexual abuser man as the candidate, and that flipped when there was a second, equally old, equally serious sexual abuse allegation? That is a silly assertion to make.

It's official. He's gone. The only stick they needed was unified unrelenting social pressure.

I find it rather distasteful. The Democratic party apparatus at all levels has displayed sheer contempt for both the results of the primary election and the entire concept of personal loyalty. They gave him nothing for all of his hard work and sucess.

for all of his hard work

the hard work was the problem, here.

I really don’t know how the Democrats expect to find a young charismatic male candidate who doesn’t crush puss. They are systematically excluding anyone who people are biologically hardwired to like from positions of power.

Like, do you want to win, or do you want to not vote for a rapist? This is not a rhetorical question.

Seriously? "All charismatic white men can be assumed to be rapists by default" is a caricature of radfem slander, not actually a defensible statement about the world.

Also, (it is alleged that) Platner turned up drunk at his girlfriend's home and forced himself on her in a haze. We are not talking about assertive chad behavior at a bar that the chick was maybe into at the time but progressives don't like. This is low-status, slovenly behavior that ~everyone in western culture would have found reprehensible for the past thousand years, albeit for different reasons and with varying levels of perceived seriousness of the offense.

I think the more defensible position is that charismatic, dominant men who are very committed to progressive values- which includes sex positivity- are mostly rapists, and that older mores are protective against committing rape. An exaggerated version of the male feminist effect.

You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to be a white male democrat these days. That's part of the problem. I think most men with any quality have been put off, and it's only at the fringes in places like Maine where there are still some holdouts.

I think there's a strong argument that Platner is the one who broke the concept of loyalty here, not the party. If this allegation was waiting in the wings, and Platner knew it was, his entire candidacy was based on false pretenses. He explicitly told his supporters that nothing more would be revealed after the initial round of scandals. That was clearly a lie.

I’m not a Maine voter, but I was a supporter of his until this point, and I generally back the populist left. I’m more than happy to ditch him now. He tanked his own movement by hiding a massive liability, and looking at the polling, a standard Democratic suit filler that isn't 70+ has a perfectly decent shot against Collins without all of this baggage.

I think it's quite likely he either didn't remember (the consent accident happened while he was totally wasted) or didn't think it was important info for voters (who doesn't send dick picks on the sly?) to know, so not quite a lie.

The core issue is that people can forgive a youthful mistake; I can definitely imagine perfectly fine people I know getting a Nazi tattoo when they were 20 or whatever. It makes the person seem more relatable, if anything. But a long pattern of bad judgments makes people start seeing you as the asshole they know in real life, not the dopey friend.

Really? You think Nazi tattoos are relatable? I don’t know anyone who has a Nazi tattoo.

No; someone drunkenly getting a stupid tattoo because they think it looks cool is something that happens. It's less embarrassing than someone getting e.g. a Chinese characters tattoo that means something incoherent.

I don't have a clue about whether Platner actually knew or not; it's not something I have researched and never cared enough to. And, for most voters, that protestation of ignorance and stupid youthful mistake would be enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Layer enough bad judgments on, though, and that benefit of the doubt disappears.

How many marines do you know? Because it's actually not that unheard of in those circles.

I don't know anyone with a Nazi tattoo. I do know people who might have plausibly said, while very drunk in Eastern Europe, "Let me get.... uh... oh, how about that sick skull thing? That's the one that'll make people think I went to Yale, right?"

Not that I believe Platner's protestations of ignorance. Too many people claimed that he definitely knew, and bragged about, what it was.

I once saw a guy stocking shelves in a vegetable shop who had a swastika on him.

I just don’t buy the argument that “it is something that can totally happen” yet no one knows anyone else that got a Nazi tattoo.

As a nerdy kid who was into Vikings, Roman history, and heavy metal, I feel like my entire adolescence was just a giant minefield of cool as fuck symbols I wasn't allowed to appreciate because some fascists 80 years ago were also nerds who liked viking shit.

Comitting to getting a permanent tattoo, spending hundreds of dollars, and finding a tattoo artist who also is completely unaware of the symbolism though, that starts to strain credulity. I have a hard time believing that a professional tattoo artist wouldn't know better.

I'm totally willing to believe a tattoo artist downloads 'skull and bones' from a google image search to use as a stencil pattern.

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results of the primary election

Well, at least they had one this time.

As of now, this is a moot point: Platner has suspended his campaign and plans to withdraw.

EDIT: canonical link, (@8:40 for suspending his campaign and intending to withdraw)

Hilarious. I was thinking that by the time I posted this, he might already have dropped out.

Still, the point was always moot in the sense of lacking practical significance / being purely academic - I wasn't seeking to sway his decision! So I guess I still have a similar question: what could have happened behind the scenes to convince Platner to abandon his campaign?

Hilarious. I was thinking that by the time I posted this, he might already have dropped out.

Lol, he posted two minutes before you, but spent 7 minutes on preliminaries before clearly dropping out (I skimmed it, so there might be another one before the 7:00 and 8:40 statements).

I don't think they could stop him from running as an independent, but they can pull all their support and tank his campaign that way. I don't know how fundraising works (is it money for Platner, who will spend it on his campaign, or for the Democrats, who sourced it through him and will spend it on the Senate race, or what), which affects how much he could even spend. If it was party funds sourced from his campaign and earmarked for its use, then he might be simply out of luck. If it was personally-allocated funds, then he still needs to have staff willing to accept his money to do work etc.

It would be very difficult to run a campaign of that scale without a political machine backing you. If the Democrat membership as a whole (not just the leaders) reject him, then he won't get any volunteers, staffers, analysts, etc.

I'm sure they've told Platner that if he stays in they'll destroy him, and if he drops out they'll find some place (less than Senator) for him. I'm also sure they're lying and if Platner drops out they'll bury him. From Platner's point of view, if he believes this, his only winning move is to beat Collins, at which point the Democrats will have to deal with him as Senator.

I really thought he was just going to stay in, try to rehabilitate his image while still in the public eye, and then just lose by 5-10 points. He didn't have to actually beat Colins - he just needed to survive another news cycle, so that the very last thing anyone ever heard about him wasn't calling him a rapist. To me, that seemed like his least-bad option.

So he'd be a rapist and cost Maine Democrats a potentially winnable seat (generic Dem vastly outperformed him, even before this story broke). That's his path to being liked again?

Generic Dem outpolls basically any Dem candidate in any election. Its a fabulous example of just how good Dem branding is that their voters care so deeply about the letter next to the name on the ballot. Its only when an actual human with scandals and bad interviews gets on the ballot that Dems start losing. Republicans have the opposite problem- Generic Repub looses polls badly.

Generic X will nearly always outperform any existing person for either party because Generic X by definition cannot be involved in scandals or have personal flaws such as being a poor speaker.

IIRC from the last time Nate Silver brought it up, historically Generic Republican underperforms by roughly 4 points on congressional polls, while Generic Dem overperforms by 3 for a relatively constant delta. Modern polling (ie after 2016) has apparently slightly closed this gap, but it still exists.

The perks of relentless, shameless media dominance. Stuff like this sways millions of votes every election cycle.

To be fair, generic Dem outperforms everybody as far as I know. That's why the meta for modern politics is to indicate you hold generic positions and then say as little as possible.

  1. I question the premise that the Democratic establishment had rallied behind Platner. This probably hinges on the question of what we mean by establishment and what we mean by defended. At best, it was begrudgingly. Many of Platner's remaining supporters, for what it's worth, have taken up the line "the Democratic establishment is stabbing Platner in the back so they can install their preferred moderate running dog as the candidate." And, cui bono? Collins would have preferred this come out two weeks from now.

  2. Democrats have plenty of comfortable sinecures that he'll have access to, if he plays nice. Media figure, think tank employee, a professor of feminist studies at the University of Maine. The world is his oyster; just not the Senate.

  3. Democrats can run a write in campaign, like Mukowski a few years back. Platner's negotiating leverage isn't that great, and since Maine has ranked voting, Democrats can plausibly pull off a win. Or certainly doom him to a loss.

Write in campaign is hard. You need low knowledge voters to put you over the top and a write in campaign requires the opposite of low knowledge voters

Democrats have plenty of comfortable sinecures that he'll have access to, if he plays nice. Media figure, think tank employee, a professor of feminist studies at the University of Maine. The world is his oyster; just not the Senate.

I guess I just don't see this - I don't see him doing much better than his old oyster farm job if he drops out now.

In any case, what are the mechanics here? Like, how do these conversations actually work? Is someone offering an explicit quid pro quo (Graham, if you drop out now, then next year we'll put you on the payroll at Colby college)? Is that even legal? Either way, how could Platner rely on any such assurance?

Democrats can run a write in campaign, like Mukowski a few years back. Platner's negotiating leverage isn't that great, and since Maine has ranked voting, Democrats can plausibly pull off a win.

It's possible, but it sure seems like a long shot to me. Murkowski was a known entity (she was the incumbent Senator, was reasonably popular, and came from a prominent family), and she hit the ground running (she already had her campaign infrastructure in place for the Republican primary, which she lost). For Maine, it's not even clear who the write-in candidate would be - and that person would only have 4 months to build the campaign. Admittedly, I never thought Murkowski had a chance at winning as a write-in candidate.

I don't see him doing much better than his old oyster farm job if he drops out now.

The oyster farm job is his ceiling, not his floor. His one customer is liable to drop him if the publicity gets bad enough.

doesn't his mom own the restaurant?

Even worse. He would ruin his mom's job too.

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The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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