There’s a Hard Lesson in the Graham Platner Debacle, if Democrats Dare to Learn It

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. This week, a 41-year-old Maine woman named Jenny Racicot told Politico reporters that Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate from Maine, raped her while the two were dating. According to Racicot, Platner showed up at her house very drunk after she told him not to come over, and forced her into sex. The morning after the assault, Platner said he didn’t remember what happened; she told him that the sex had not been consensual and stopped speaking to him. “These allegations are troubling, serious, and false,” Platner said in a statement. “Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically untrue.” Democrats are almost universally calling for Platner to drop out of the race, and at this point, it seems virtually guaranteed that he will. This is also now a familiar script: Man aims for position of power; man faces serious and credible sexual assault allegations; man categorically denies the allegations. But the story seems to end differently if the man is a Democrat rather than a Republican. Democratic men accused of sexual abuse or other acts of serious misconduct face intense pressure to drop out from Republicans and Democrats alike. Republican men accused of sexual abuse or other acts of serious misconduct face intense pressure to drop out, but largely from Democrats—a handful of Republicans may object, and a handful of Republican office seekers have indeed resigned, but the party has routinely rallied around men accused of all manner of wrongdoing (including the president, who was found liable for sexual abuse). This, to be sure, is an awfully low bar to clear (which is why it’s so galling that Republicans consistently fail to clear it themselves while trying to ratchet it higher for their political opponents). And yet some on the left want to see Democrats lower the bar even further. The argument seems to be that Democrats should quit being such pansies and instead do a kind of reverse Michelle Obama: As populist candidate Abdul El-Sayed put it, “When they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out.” The Platner disaster shows the danger in that thinking—and the perils of the macho attitude behind it. (It’s a little tough to imagine a female candidate credibly boasting about choking out her opponents.) It also makes apparent that Democrats need to embrace candidates who have not just a particular set of progressive political views but a track record of conscientiousness and ideally excellence, a tendency toward virtue, and fundamental decency of character. That doesn’t mean no bad tweets or questionable Reddit posts. It does mean a history of generally good judgment, in which foolish acts are the exception rather than the rule. And because all people make mistakes, some good people do truly terrible things, and few people are totally irredeemable, it also means a habit of taking responsibility and attempting to make amends—and it means, as a society, agreeing upon what may or may not be totally disqualifying for seeking higher office, even if apologies are given and amends are made. As Platner’s campaign took off and a drip-drip of unsettling stories about him began to surface, some prominent leftists staked out a position we might call pro-vice, or at least a rejection of the “We Go High” Democratic aspiration. “Graham Platner represents a rejection of Dem HR lady politics,” Matt Stoller, a prominent progressive political commentator, tweeted several weeks ago. (He meant it as a compliment.) Platner’s baritone voice, working-man aesthetic, and rough-around-the-edges vibe seemed to be as much part of his appeal as any of his policy positions and his undeniable charisma. His Reddit posts included complaints about Black people not tipping and observations that women who didn’t want to be raped could avoid getting blackout drunk—the latter claim now a bit ironic, given the accusation that Platner was a blackout drunk who committed rape—but largely weren’t seen as disqualifying. His posts about joining the Marines so he could kill people and those that generally evinced a broad disregard for human life barely even registered. His tattoo of a Nazi symbol, which he also got while drunk on shore leave from the Marines, created a blip of controversy as well but was explained away. The narrative was that Platner was a veteran with PTSD, someone who had returned from America’s military adventures abroad deeply troubled by what he had seen and had consumed copious amounts of alcohol and made poor decisions in a dark period from which he had emerged stronger and intent on making change. It was hard not to notice, though, that many of the progressive political operators and talking heads who championed Platner seemed primarily taken in by his manliness, and his embodiment of a stereotypically white working-class man who, though often neglected in policy, is routinely cast as the main character in American political theater. From that vantage point, Platner’s bad decisions didn’t raise red flags; they displayed authenticity. He wasn’t one of these “candidates grown in vats,” as Platner strategist Dan Moraff put it to the Wall Street Journal. From that perspective, a man who is ambitious, works hard in school, goes to a top university, keeps his nose clean, and gets a job in, say, consulting is a far worse choice than someone who floats through life without much in the way of goals, has an online edgelord era, and eventually decides he should sit in one of the most powerful seats in the United States, even if he also worked as a private military contractor for an organization roundly despised by leftists. Platner was lifted to prominence by leaders of a political movement that seeks to blow up the status quo, and who too often tie things like professional dress, Ivy League credentials, and significant political experience to all that’s wrong with American politics. Platner’s transgressions were part of his transgressive appeal. That they were macho-coded transgressions was core to his sustained support. The mistake, though, comes in reading transgression and a lack of conscientiousness as authenticity, or a reflection of a particular set of progressive politics. When Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman padded around Congress in a hoodie and basketball shorts, his defenders painted it as a sign of his working-class bona fides—not the kind of disrespectful behavior and reflexively defiant personality that would alienate him from his colleagues, alienate him from his base, and make him one of the least effective and most despised politicians in Washington. Platner was waving similar red flags. The Reddit posts, the Totenkopf tattoo, the sexting with many other women shortly after his marriage—these are not “working-class” behaviors so much as antisocial behaviors. “Authenticity” is one way of reading them. Another is that Platner has a history of poor decisionmaking, of heavy alcohol use, and of lying, including to those he cares about. He didn’t have skeletons just in his closet; he had one tattooed on his chest. The fetishization of the white working-class man on left and right alike is part of what brought us to this ugly moment. There is more than an undercurrent of misogyny in the idea that the white guy who works with his hands is the ultimate Real American—and a tsunami of misogyny inevitably washes down on women who question that romanticization. Not long ago, the New York Times published a story that detailed a series of allegations against Platner, including one from Racicot, although she didn’t disclose the rape at the time. The worst accusations were made by Lyndsey Fifield, a Republican operative and one of Platner’s exes, who said he repeatedly manhandled her, including once painfully twisting her arm behind her back and trapping her in a bedroom. Fifield seemed hesitant to call what she endured assault or domestic violence, but those terms certainly apply to what she described. The Times, I think justifiably, included Fifield’s political work in the story, a move that outraged her and many others. I’d argue that her work is relevant to her credibility, but it was also stunning to see how thoroughly she was trashed and immediately disbelieved by many liberals and progressives. This seems to be part of what pushed Racicot to come forward, even though she’s a Democrat and has been explicit that she has stayed silent in part because she didn’t want to hurt the party’s chances. Hearing Platner deny that he assaulted Fifield, and seeing so many rally behind him and against her, was too much. “I know that he is capable of putting his hands on women,” she told Politico. “So I don’t believe that to be the truth.” Platner’s own actions sank him. But the misogynistic line of thinking that elevated him—the salivating over a particular vision of masculinity, the attacks on women who questioned it, the fetishization of macho transgression—is part of the story too, and one Democrats should learn from. The truth seems to be that Platner is a troubled guy with a complicated past. He has done many good things, and some truly terrible ones—including running for a Senate seat in a competitive state despite his history. Progressives often emphasize the need for justice that allows for both accountability and repair, that people should not be able to get away with terrible things, but neither should people who have done terrible things be judged by their worst acts or ostracized forever and ever. Platner himself made this case after his Reddit posts came to light, asking that voters not judge him for “the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago.” And that’s all fair enough. But one aspect of a fair justice system is for wrongdoers to face proportionate consequences—not to be shunned forever, but to be expected to own up, make amends, and, sometimes, pay a penalty. That means that even if a person does terrible things, they should still be able to vote, to advocate for the policies they believe in, and to participate in the democratic process. It also means, though, that one consequence of sexually or otherwise abusing women and not ever making amends, even if one did so during a period of trauma or addiction, should probably be that you just don’t get to be one of the most powerful people in America. Unfortunately, though, thanks to Platner’s hubris and the vast blind spots of those who elevated him, it’s the people of Maine—and the people of America—who are the ones who will ultimately live with the consequences of Platner’s actions.