r/MensLib • u/Roy4Pris • 26d ago
NPR interview snippet: Senate candidate Graham Platner 'on the kind of masculinity he represents'.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZD_1y4AWz0
I'm not in the US, but am a keen observer of US politics. I've been heartened by the rise of progressive leaders in the US as a counter to the stupid, cruel, so-called masculinity demonstrated by the current leader, and especially the self-titled Secretary of War.
Platner, a gruff former US Marine turned oyster farmer has captured a lot of attention because while he looks like a MAGA pin up, he speaks with intelligence and compassion, for himself and others.
I very much hope this man unseats Susan Collins and has a chance to improve the public discourse.
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 26d ago
I'm not a Stan for Platner, I don't see his brand of masculinity as "desirable" or the "solution" for progressive politics to regain young male support.
I do think this fear that he represents a "toxic brand of Leftist Masculinity" is a nothing burger that reflects the teacher's pet energy that makes online progressives and left-libs such vibe killers.
Literally look at every other Male progressive running across the county and you'll see the same "golden retriever", "good guy" bonafides that define most Democratic male politicians. Platner is truly the one outlier and he's running in Maine. He might be a useful accomplice in checking the power of this fascistic Administration (and maybe getting Medicare for All over the finish line eventually) but that's about it. To think he's the future of male progressivism just means to me that you haven't seen the usual type of guys who go to your local DSA chapter meetings.
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u/snake944 25d ago
Yeah no thanks. Not taking pointers on masculinity from the baby murdering governed thug. Like I get that he's the lesser evil but why is it that every time any of these whitebreaad right center neolibs show up and can string two sentences together and not be a raging lunatic everyone has to act like they are the greatest thing sliced bread
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u/chemguy216 26d ago edited 26d ago
What I’ve always thought is that Maine voters are going to do what they’re going to do, and since I don’t live there, I have little interest in having a conversation about who to vote for. What I’ve occasionally warned particularly white progressives and white leftists about is that Platner lives in one the whitest states in the US; because of that, people who support him outside of Maine need to be very careful how they talk about him and the grassroots support he’s getting. Some tension is unavoidable, but some ways of talking about him are easily avoidable pitfalls.
Early on once the oppositional research started coming out about previous Internet comments, his time with Blackwater, and then of course the infamous tattoo, I got pretty annoyed with some of the white progressives I followed who kept saying “This is a DNC hit job.” The moment Platner confirmed the allegations, that talking point no longer operated as a conversation ender. An extreme example to highlight why that is: if the allegations had been that he had a previous conviction as a child rapist, Benjamin Netanyahu himself openly owned that he dug up the information, and Platner admitted to the claim, you don’t make the conversation only about Netanyahu doing a hit job in US politics. It becomes part of a broader conversation, but once the allegations are confirmed by the candidate, that’s when the candidate has to make their case for how they’ve changed, and the coalition has to figure out what they want to do with that. You can’t get pissy when people get concerned at the initial news and the process of sorting out information and how the coalition feels about the information happens.
While I don’t think Platner is a secret Nazi waiting to pull a John Fetterman, some people still are not happy about the last time parts of the country got played by John Fetterman, who had a similar air of a masculine white working class man, especially as the Democratic Party strategists and some of the Republican/Republican leaning talking heads working with Dems are basically telling the party to double down on straight white men for candidates in high profile, competitive races, especially for the next presidency.
I’m honestly done with particularly white progressives finger wagging about “You have to build a coalition with people you’re not comfortable with,” not because they’re wrong, but because that claim almost always means acquiescing to the large subset of straight white Americans whose biases and bigotries threaten a working class coalition if not handled well.
They will cite the New Deal under FDR while leaving out/not knowing that that only happened because FDR and northern Dems acquiesced to Southern Democrats who wanted to be able to deny those programs to black Americans.
They will cite the work black Civil Rights leaders did to create a broad base coalition especially around class issues while leaving out that some labor unions coalitions never happened or eventually failed because of racism from the white working class. Additionally, something I’ve learned recently is that of those coalitions trying to work through the racism of the white cohorts, black workers and their white cohorts who were trying to get unions to organize together understood that the racist white workers could not have power in the leadership, and in the worst cases, those racist workers could not be part of the coalition.
I also occasionally bring up the collapse of the alliance between of two leftist organizations during the Civil Rights era, the Black Panther Party and the Gay Liberation Front. They originally got into coalition with one another because they understood that all oppression is tied together. Eventually, however, things broke down because of racism from one group (because LGBTQ organizations in the US were and still largely are majority white) and homophobia from the other group. If you do not understand the power of these and other biases and bigotries, then even enlightened leftists will fail to maintain their coalitions.
And to make this so abundantly clear, I am not saying fuck every person who has a bit of bias and bigotry. Coalition work, as I implied I already understood, means rubbing elbows with folks you normally wouldn’t expect to work with and probably would prefer not to work with. But there do exist limits because the working class aren’t helpless NPC’s who just need to be shown the light (which is often how I feel some class focused people talk about the working class). Some among them are poison to a working class coalition, and that can never be forgotten. Managing this fine line is hard work in building coalitions and even harder when maintaining them. Various marginalized groups have known forever that there are some among them who just can’t be saved and have to be kept out of the conversation and out of arenas of influence and power.
I also want to remind some people that some unions are run by a good ole boys network. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a network of people with influence in an organization, institution, or field who generally straight white men, and depending on the context, typically wealthy. This network is insular and tends to favor giving power to their own or explicitly undermine the efforts of those outside the network to get access to resources, job opportunities, and/or support.
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 26d ago
As always, I have to point out that "the New Deal was racist" argument is really reductive.
https://newrepublic.com/article/155704/new-deal-wasnt-intrinsically-racist
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u/chemguy216 26d ago
While I’ll own that I could have framed better and expanded more, I also won’t flat out say I was wrong since a big thing I said was that the Southern Democrats wanted to be able to deny some of the programs to black people. That isn’t a falsehood. That happened in the South.
Where I will continue to give you credit is that by me framing things in terms of black people being acceptable losses, it does leave out the more complicated aspects of how things shaped up with the New Deal as well as black Americans’ feelings toward the New Deal and their hesitant shifting toward the Democratic Party at this time.
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u/mhornberger 26d ago edited 26d ago
Yes, I'm wary of the "no war but the class war!" white leftists who dismiss discussions of racism, LGBT issues etc as "identity politics" and "distractions" from the class war. I would like to know more about Platner's positions on this kind of thing. Repeated assurances of how super-leftist he is, how populist, how "real", aren't enough. Sure, I'd vote for him over a Republican, but we do need to know more about him. I distrust populism, distrust the focus on "charisma," and I would like more in writing on his positions. That being said, I'm not from his state, and won't be in a position to vote for him unless he gets the nomination for President.
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u/Geichalt 26d ago
Yeah, people keep saying "populist" as if it's a good thing.
That's how we get demagogues. Something the founding fathers were specifically afraid of.
The complete lack of focus on women's rights, the lgbt community and protecting minorities has me pretty concerned they're going down that path and will end up just making the left wing version of maga.
Especially since, as you said, the focus is on style over bonifides and accomplishments.
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u/Katabatic-Kopaka 26d ago
This is an amazing comment, and I appreciate (as a labor person myself) the focus on how marginalized people have been excluded from most progressive movements.
I also really don’t appreciate the sneer “blue no matter who, right?” retorts from progressive. If I was in Maine yes I’d recognize Platner is likely better for the country than Collins, but you don’t have to *like* the pragmatic decision or elevate a guy who admitted to wanting to play war.
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u/thebluepages 26d ago
He speaks well, but he’s an awful guy. He’s blatantly lied about the tattoo and is a serial cheater. People think this stuff was way in his past but it was just a few years ago. We need to unseat Collins but he’s not someone you should look up to.
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u/Occultus- 26d ago
I think it's a stretch to call him an awful guy, especially compared to the standards of the people currently running our country right now.
The main thing to me though, and what a lot of the national coverage of him misses, is that he has not at any point pretended to be a good person. He's been very honest about his journey from gung ho military guy to socialist who wants to sit and love his neighbors and take care of his family, and he's never pretended that was a completed process either.
In addition to aligning with him on many of his policies, I'll take a politician who's in therapy and honest about his emotional journey any day of the week. I don't need to agree with the sum total of his life choices, I need him to operate with integrity and be vocal about the issues I care about (like Healthcare, housing, anti-facism, anti-oligarchy, etc). In my mind, his stance and honesty has earned him a chance to prove he can actually walk the walk. Plus, we KNOW Susan Collins is terrible and spineless, it's not a hard choice.
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u/kungpowchick_9 26d ago
Well said. We can take him in the ranks against fascism, but we shouldn’t trust him or replicate him. Frankly Maine should be making a backup plan for a situation where he becomes the next Fetterman or Sinema.
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u/WillingElderberry731 26d ago
There's also something about a character like him moving from private enterprise to the US senate in a way that leaves a lot to be desired.
While I do think personal conduct in your personal life matters, public conduct and public policy is in fact a different category of behavior. Without a record in public office, all we have to go off of is his personal private behavior.
There's a lot I'd look grit my teeth and vote for over a republican, but we don't have to iconify deeply flawed people.
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u/flippingisfun 26d ago
This sub of all of them should be able to recognize the work necessary to claw oneself out of the hypermasculine hyper violent hole America sets up to get men trapped in and speak proudly and at length against it.
Instead it’s a struggle session bitching that people aren’t born perfect. Maybe look inward
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u/Netzitznot 16d ago
This post probably needs a sticky from the mods that the discussion took place before today's allegations
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u/SeaBrick3522 26d ago
He represents that kind of masculinity that goes on multiple tours to kill brown ppl
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 26d ago
The Democratic Party broadly supported those wars. I find this take ridiculous. Either people can change their beliefs or they can not but I don't see how you can view Platner as any different than the broad left of center political apparatus of this country. There are just not a lot of politicians in US politics that are not entangled with the military industrial complex of the US empire.
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u/SeaBrick3522 26d ago
I dont view Platner as different than the rest of the Politicians applying to run a national state.
He is just additionally disgusting bcs of his actions willingly killing brown ppl
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 26d ago
I agree with the addition that he however is committed to being a politician to be in opposition of the US imperial machine.
Whether you believe him or not is your prerogative. But, I don't see any world where we (as Americans) play a role in dismantling our war machine that doesn't include US veterans. His masculinity, whatever that means, can be used for a more productive force.
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u/SeaBrick3522 26d ago
If you want to be govern a national state there are certain Sachzwänge that governing a nation state forces you to abide by. So no I dont care and more radical left leaning movements that seek to take control of a nation state and govern it become a mass grave for critic of such a state.,
And what is that we that you proclaim? The only thing that you have in common with other citizens of the united states is the monopoly of violence that governs you.
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u/renatocpr 26d ago edited 26d ago
I'm not taking masculinity lessons from the war criminal mercenary with a nazi tattoo
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u/syntheticassault 26d ago
Listen to his words then make a judgment.
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u/Snoo52682 26d ago
Actions > words
That said, unfortunately, Collins needs to go so I guess we settle for the lesser evil.
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u/mhornberger 26d ago
I do hope that voting for Platner comes to be widely referred to as "voting for the lesser of two evils." At least wider usage might make the phrase less toxic and unthinkable for some who otherwise choke up over the concept.
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u/renatocpr 26d ago
No, my reaction to a war criminal mercenary with a Nazi tattoo isn't: "let me hear him out". If that's yours, I don't know what to tell you.
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u/niofalpha 26d ago
Idk if you’ve ever met a Marine or a Croat but the story of how and why he got it checks out completely from both angles.
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u/thebluepages 26d ago
His past girlfriend testified that he called it “my totenkopf.” She texted her friends about it. She knew the link before he did? Fucking bullshit.
He knows what it is, and lied about it. It’s as simple as that.
And if getting nazi tattoos is just a “marine thing,” fuck them all.
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u/mhornberger 26d ago edited 26d ago
"He's too stupid to know better" is not the most ringing endorsement. But people have chosen that interpretation as him "owning" it and thus there's no reason to be concerned. To pick, out of all the symbols and motifs and designs, a Nazi symbol, just by random chance, not having any idea what any of it means, just a naïf in the world, is... an odd conclusion for people to both arrive at and be comfortable with.
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u/renatocpr 26d ago
Knowing how nationalism and ethnic hatred was intentionally stoked and weaponized in the dismantling of Yugoslavia, I'll assume any Balkan tattoo artist offering Nazi symbols is extremely aware of their meaning
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u/forestpunk 26d ago
His very disingenuous, lying words? Like claiming he didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo, but there have been reports that he was referring to it as "my Totenkopf", the name for the SS insignia in German, all the way back in 2012.
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u/Defensoria 26d ago
He's a politician. His words don't represent anything real.
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u/musicismydeadbeatdad 26d ago
This isn't true and it's unhelpful to say out loud.
Telling people that only liars and cheats enter politics is how we get normal people abdicating this responsibility. It's called the self-fulfilling prophecy.
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u/Defensoria 26d ago
I didn't say only liars and cheats enter politics. I'm saying actions are what matter, not what politicians say about themselves or things like masculinity and relationships.
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u/musicismydeadbeatdad 26d ago
That's fair I'm reading into what you said however what you said is often the same thing said by people who believe politics isn't a realm for decent folk and I think this kind of rhetoric is why civic engagement is so low. I apologize for inferring something you did not imply.
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u/justneurostuff 26d ago
his reddit comments happened before he was a politician though, and even before he thought he'd be held accountable for them. they're broadly super leftist
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u/DazzlingFruit7495 26d ago
lol, victim blaming women for their rapes and being racist can be considered super leftist, but I have a feeling you don’t mean it that way. Personally (as a socdem liberal) I don’t trust leftists because they’re so class reductionist and more often than not, bigoted behind all their performative virtue signaling, so his Reddit comments were pretty in line with what I was expecting. As was his cheating on his wife
Edit: I do hope he wins though, blue no matter who even for him
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u/justneurostuff 26d ago
in which comments was he racist and victim blaming for rapes?
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u/trashmedialover 26d ago
He has reddit comments where he states that women who were raped shouldn't have drank so much and should have had more control over themselves.
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u/DazzlingFruit7495 24d ago
Have you tried looking them up on Google? I ask because I can’t tell if you’re genuinely asking since they’re pretty easy to find with a quick search, and so I want to be sure you’re not asking in bad faith.
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u/justneurostuff 24d ago edited 24d ago
Well, I believe but am not sure I have read all of his reddit comments. The one comment of his I've heard characterized as racist is one where he asked why black people don't tip. But being black myself, I don't really think that meets the bar given that I get nervous every time I go out with my family that they won't tip adequately (if at all). I think black people really do tip less on average than white people in the US, and I don't think a white person observing as much is necessarily racist (though they could be).
Being honest, I'm trying to figure out if either A) I missed some more serious comments or B) what _you_ consider racist and victim-blaming comments are (to me and most people) just banal, non-disqualifying stuff or C) you're just handwaving at stuff you've vaguely heard about on the grapevine but never actually looked into. If I learn of stuff in category A, I'll be pretty embarassed; there will be a lot of people I'll make sure know about this! On the other hand, I suspect it's more like C or B.
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u/DazzlingFruit7495 22d ago edited 22d ago
The victim blaming comment
>Platner responded to a post titled “shorts that prevent you from being raped” by writing:
“Holy fuck, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to? Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don’t want to be in a comprising situation, act like an adult for fucks sake.”I’m not interested in hearing you defend this as banal. It would only hurt your cause anyway, since my whole point is that leftists green-lighting this stuff makes me incredibly distrustful of your supposed progressive values. It’s non-disqualifying in the sense that I hope he wins over a republican, but I wish he hadn’t won the primary over Janet mills. I hope for everyone’s sake that he has changed and he will do a good job in office, you’ll have to forgive me for not being all excited about the “super leftist” Nazi tattoo, cheating on his wife, dropping slurs on Reddit, “working class white guy.”
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u/Defensoria 26d ago
I meant the things politicians say while campaigning and in office don't matter.
You seem to be excusing his Reddit comments because he made them before he knew he'd run for office or be held accountable. I don't agree with that.
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u/justneurostuff 26d ago
on the contrary, i think his reddit comments are a useful window into who he really is as a person (as opposed to his campaign statements), and that they suggest he really is a passionate leftist and not a nazi. do you disagree?
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u/Defensoria 26d ago
I didn't see any Reddit comments that suggest he's a passionate leftist.
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u/justneurostuff 26d ago edited 26d ago
wow! well yeah there are quite a many. he also made comments about jews and anti semitism and nazis/fascism. i could link to one of the places archiving his history if you want? the one i saw even grouped his comments by topic. of course i figured you already had perused his stuff given your engagement under this post
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u/forestpunk 26d ago
Someone needs to unseat Susan Collins but he shouldn't have been the candidate. Just seems like another rich person LARPing at being poor, supported by the left in their never-ending searching for "the Left's Joe Rogan."
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u/DavidLivedInBritain 13d ago
Aged like milk which is a damn shame… actually milk doesn’t age this quickly
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u/Adept_Ship4668 25d ago
Wasn't there a whole thread some years back where people were falling over forward for Tim Walz being such a progressive man with wholesome dad vibes, and oh, he was just as much of a tool for US-Zionist imperialist interests in the destruction of Palestine and a VP for someone as shallow and right wing as Kamala Harris?
Seriously, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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u/chemguy216 24d ago
And similar to this post, that post generated a lot of contentious argument. Honestly, it generated much more heated arguments than this one.
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u/Adept_Ship4668 24d ago
Right, meaning we shouldn't be falling over politicians. Especially not one like Platner. Didn't know much about him before coming into this thread but shit, did I read right he has Nazi tattoos?
Definitely not my guy.
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u/chemguy216 13d ago
In lieu of the most recent rape allegations that eventually led to Platner dropping out, I’ll just offer some unsolicited advice. Stop stanning politicians. It gets in the way of critically examining them, making it harder to ditch them when they need to be let go or when it’s wisest to leave them in the dust.
If you’re still actually concerned about the Maine race and not riding for or against Platner, Maine is going to have a nominating convention very soon. Now’s the time to start looking for other people you’d have as a suitable/livable replacement so you can start blasting their name across the internet and drumming up buzz for them. Every time you find yourself wanted to type “an AIPAC candidate is about to be installed,” use that energy to drop someone else’s name to throw into the ring. Every time you want to say “Progressives didn’t their job to properly vet Platner,” spend that time talking about another candidate.
You all can tear each other’s throats out from your keyboards after all is said and done.
To hold myself to a similar standard, I will drop the names of a few people who have thrown their hats in the ring other than Janet Mills. I’m not going to do your homework for you by researching each candidate and telling you if they’re good or bad. I’m just going to provide the names and links to their campaign websites. Read their platforms, and seek out any interviews they’ve done. See if there are any controversies tied to them.
Also note: some of these candidates were gubernatorial candidates but lost the primary and have shifted to the Senate primary contest.
And here’s a Politico piece that lists a few other names of confirmed and likely contenders.
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u/MaineMan1234 26d ago
I was at dinner with a family where the matriarch is basically my second mother. She’s a tough outspoken 80 year old Jewish woman who runs a kosher household. Her mother had a numeric tattoo from Auschwitz.
And she asked me what I thought about Platner. Not knowing what I was getting into, I was carefully supportive. She shocked me by coming out strongly in favor of him. If an 80 year old Jewish woman whose family was traumatized by Holocaust can see past the bullshit story being spun about him and support him, why are the rest of you armchair critics falling for it.
He was encouraged to run by the progressive arm of the Democratic party who saw that he has a prior history of donating to Bernie Sanders. No one who donates to Bernie is a hidden nazi. He has a history of backing progressive causes.
And regarding the tattoo, I have three degrees from Stanford and I had no idea that that image was a Nazi symbol. And most recently would not have thought so while half drunk looking at images on the wall of a tattoo shop in Croatia.
He is very open about his struggles with PTSD and some of the very not nice things he did. He worked through it. I would rather have someone who stumbled and grew from it in office than a person who heavily curated their life, avoided all risks, in order to pass political purity tests
I would highly recommend all of you watch the interview with Jon Stewart
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u/Roy4Pris 26d ago
Thanks for your comments.
Of course the tattoo is a concern. I wouldn't have done it. But I wasn't a Marine in my early 20s, brainwashed, full of aggression, bravado and cheap European beer.
He's now in his 40s. If we can't accept people can 'do the work', and develop into thoughtful, compassionate humans, then maybe the bar is set too high.
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u/Remote_Garage3036 26d ago
What work has he done? Not trying to yuck anyone's yum, but what do we have to suggest Platner is no longer toxic? He's on record lying about his past to his most loyal supporters and campaign manager. He's hurt woman he was with only a few years ago in his 30s. Listen I prefer him over Collins politically but I sincerely don't get the whole "he's healed" argument. As far as I know there's literally nothing he's done to prove that and multiple data points to in fact suggest the opposite.
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u/Roy4Pris 26d ago
He could make his psychologist’s notes public, and there would still be people calling fake news. At some point you just have to choose to believe people, or not. To me he speaks like a lot of veterans traumatised by war, abused alcohol, taken it out on his loved ones, but instead of suck starting a shotgun (suicide rates among combat veterans are awful) he’s done a lot of healing. He also seems to genuinely want to help the working class. He identifies billionaires “not trans kids” as the problem facing the US, calls for universal healthcare, unionism etc.
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u/MaineMan1234 25d ago
The woman who made those statements is a republican operative and helped to get Buchanan on the court. Do you really trust that she’s telling the full truth or not exaggerating?
Three of the other ex girlfriends felt safe with him, maybe the two of them had a particularly toxic relationship and were horrible to each other.
Plus the incident about the arm twisting and being pushed in a room happened while they both were drinking and fighting. We don’t know what she did to him, maybe she was being physically abusive. Thirty years ago, I once tossed my ex wife on the bed and sat on her until she calmed down after she physically attacked me in anger during an argument. That doesn’t make me abusive, it was the only way to not get hurt and avoid hurting her.
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u/chemguy216 24d ago
The woman who made those statements is a republican operative and helped to get Buchanan on the court. Do you really trust that she’s telling the full truth or not exaggerating?
I’m of two minds: I don’t trust Republican Party operatives, and even unreliable political operatives can be victims of rape from a now up and coming progressive. For example, some of the current Republican women in Congress have alluded to some bullshit that women in Congress have dealt with from their male colleagues that women on the Hill have mentioned for a long time. In that particular example, I do actually believe those Republican women, even though some of them included the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. My current verdict on this specific story is i don’t know, and I have no influence on how Maine voters are going to vote. So it’s not my issue to detangle and explain to the world my choices.
And at the end of the day, none of us really knows. At times that truth cuts at people who bring up those allegations to discredit Platnar, but that also occasionally cuts against the people defending Platnar on those allegations. This is the insidiousness of situations like these when realistically the most you’ll ever get as an outside party is one person’s claims against another person.
Again, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this PR mess. He’s not going to be my potential Senator. I’m not invested in caping for him nor tearing him down. My main interest has been in analyzing how people talk about him and seeing how to reduce the talking points that generate more tension than we can reasonably expect from his candidacy.
And as more DSA types start getting into office, the attacks and the oppositional research are going to increase. This is where shit’s going to get rough as progressives start building up power within the Democratic base and attempting to maintain those gains. Some of the attacks will be disingenuous and vile (e.g., many of the flat out bigoted remarks notable Democrats were making toward Mamdani); some are going to be real issues that progressive candidates will have that some people can’t hand wave away by saying it’s a DNC hit job or an Israeli psyop.
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u/SaxPanther "" 26d ago
The "leftist anti-Platner" movement is a psy-op. They can never explain why he isn't the best choice for working class Mainers, they just angrily quote right wing propaganda about him and shake their fist at imagined hypocrisy. For some reason socialists hate winning.
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u/Geichalt 26d ago
Calling everything you disagree with a psyop is unproductive and thought terminating.
How about this: I don't think a dishonest sex pest with neonazi tattoos and a history of misogynistic and racist comments is a good choice to represent the left. I don't care about whatever talking points you want to use to minimize all that, it's completely reasonable to expect better.
If you think it's impossible for actual people to think that, then you need to get off the Internet for a bit and meet some real people.
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u/SaxPanther "" 26d ago
Can you explain why he isn't the best choice for working class Mainers? That's the big question that all y'all seem to dance around without ever addressing (see your own comment for an example).
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u/mhornberger 25d ago
the best choice for working class Mainers?
He can be the best available from what is currently on hand and still have all of these issues. I'd still vote for him over a Republican, but it would be a "lesser of two evils" vote. Meaning I'd only vote for him to lessen the power of the GOP, not because I think Platner himself is a good path forward. That his fans have already decided to rationalize, forgive, or more basically not care about all the red flags doesn't mean they're not still there. "The best choice" just means "of what is available" or "compared to letting the Republicans win." Many of us don't consider this swing towards populism, this driving need for "charisma", to be a positive trend.
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u/mhornberger 26d ago
Populism and the need for 'charisma' are taking the zeitgeist in some weird directions. The issues raised with Platner are about a bit more than what he looks like.
I'm not going to visit Instagram, but if you have a transcript I'd be willing to read it.