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Notes -
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?
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.
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
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.
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
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