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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?
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.
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.
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