Platnervous?

I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, but...

Democrats have a real advantage going into the last months before the midterms — which may be why the Prestige Press is fanning controversy among the various Democratic factions that might damage their chances.

Funny, in the run-up to the previous Trump-time midterms in 2018, and in the run-up to the Biden-time midterms in 2022, I don’t recall much left-on-left controversy at all. Everyone seemed to understand the assignment (save democracy). I do recall our media pals trying to start some shit; in the former case, by lamenting how uncivil Democrats had become; in the latter, by wishcasting a “red wave.” But that’s just how they do; within the Blue camp, they didn’t get much assistance.

Yet now, five months from the midterms, we have an intra-party tsimmis over Graham Platner. To be fair, it’s not like the PP invented this — when the untested oysterman made his rapid rise in the Maine Senate race, borne aloft on waves of lefty enthusiasm (endorsements from Bernie and Elizabeth Warren!) and anti-gerontocratic opposition to politically palatable but 78-year-old Governor Janet Mills, it was almost inevitable that skeletons would from time to time tumble from the many uninspected corners of his closet.

Now, with a bizarre sexting scandal coming out weeks before the primary, it’s natural that people would worry that if he gets the nomination Republicans will have a whole battery of negative stories ready to run against him — maybe real, maybe not; after this mess, either kind might stick and sink him.

Well. Regular readers know I like Janet Mills, especially for punching back at Tubby and winning when so many institutionalist Democrats were showing their bellies. I saw the Platnerites calling her a liability (“Are Democrats About to Blow It in Maine?”) and just didn’t get it. In fact I thought Mills was the better choice and said so (”Maybe the way for Democrats to win is not to be young and vigorous, necessarily, but to fight as if they are”).

I wasn’t hot about it, though — I figured if Maine Democrats wanted Platner that bad (his primary poll leads were huge even before Mills withdrew), maybe they knew something I didn’t. And I must admit I was put further in sympathy with him by the opposition of that pious fraud David French, who did a whole don’t-become-your-enemy routine at the Times after Platner’s earlier scandals broke (“I’m seeing Democrats engage in the same process of absurd accommodation and justification that Republicans use to excuse their deep love for Trump” oh my God shut up nerd).

When Mills stepped back from the race, I figured that was that. But now with the sext thing the chatter is louder, and even though fink outlets like Axios are flogging it, it seems imprudent to ignore the controversy when there’s so much at stake.

I have two reactions to this: One practical, one moral.

The practical one is a wash. The fuckups Platner has been nailed for (so far) prove him a lunkhead but not a reprobate. The Nazi tattoo sounds like something a jarhead would do and not think about. His offensive Reddit comments, ditto. The sexting’s between him and the missus. He’s apologized and Maine Democrats seem cool with it. And if they’re not — and this is key, folks — they can always vote for somebody else on June 9.

On the moral question, I’m actually pretty outraged. But not at Platner.

I’m sitting here in the year of our Lord 2026 after ten years of Trump-infused politics. The sitting president is a felon, a con man, a tax cheat, and a rapist. His cabinet and other associates are all grifters and/or criminals of one kind or another. The whole party cheerfully enables immigrant kidnapping, concentration camps, the murder of protestors, and war crimes; it starves the poor, destroys public health, wrecks our infrastructure, and divides our allies.

And yet I am forced to listen to the likes of David French telling me how awful, how unforgivable, how disqualifying it would be for the Democrats to nominate this horrible man who has not stolen anything, nor been convicted of felonies, nor raped anyone, and is in polls still beating both his Democratic rivals and Susan Collins despite the controversies.

Chrissakes, I had to listen to Kellyanne goddamn Conway, Tubby’s original lie diffuser, compare Platner to David Duke and demand that my fellow Democrats and I “tell him to get off the ticket.”

And I’m supposed to worry that maybe this Democratic Senate front-runner isn’t a nice guy? Eat shit.

The Democrats have been playing Mother May I for decades while the Republicans rampage over every conceivable ethical and moral line. We just saw two of the grand old men of the grand old party, Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, suck up to Trump in the primaries and still get kicked in the balls because they weren’t sufficiently Trumplike (i.e., degenerate). Cornyn was beaten by the most comically corrupt politician in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly all other GOP candidates are crooks, psychos and/or morons.

But nobody’s crying O what does this say about the Republican Party? Surely the good Republicans will speak out!

It is well known that Democrats are held to a higher double standard. Well, here’s an idea — how about we start by not holding ourselves to it? The country is being flushed down the shitter by the worst people on earth. We don’t have time for patty-cake. Vote Platner — or don’t! Then vote in November, or be damned.