Update: It turns out the accuser only described the DMs. She did not produce them. So this is she said/he said. Under such circumstances in no way should Platner drop out and yes, this is a political hit. It was coordinated by the party and media, they immediately withdrew all funding and voter lists and had a plan for choosing their own candidate.
“Her therapist SORT OF acknowledging”
“We were not able to review those DM’s. She described them to us.”
WTF
Mika’s dumbstruck that they’re entirely taking the accuser’s word without a shred of anything else. And everyone’s shouting “credible” like trained circus seals. https://t.co/RA7v1MsoUC
— Guillermo Mena 🏳️🌈🇺🇦🇵🇷🇺🇸 (@GuillermoMena) July 7, 2026
for whatever reason, Americans take allegations like these much more seriously than gross corruption, bribe taking, insider trading, or mass murder.
And now an allegation against Platner which was organized by a Democratic establishment lawyer has lead to Platner quitting.
Which is exactly the wrong thing to do. He says he didn’t do it, the Maine party will pick the new candidate through a meeting of six hundred insiders, so the candidate won’t be a strong progressive, and by stepping down he removes protection from those who supported him.
How much more obvious can it be that this Platner ‘scandal’ is an attempted ideological purge of the left?
A lot of people played into it because they just don’t really hold to their stated values. https://t.co/fDlTIFgzAf
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 8, 2026
The reason Stoller is on this is that like me he came up through the Netroots. We’ve seen this playbook over and over and over again. We recognize it.
The idea that it is principled is laughable. I saw Fetterman attacking Sanders for supporting Platner, as if Fetterman doesn’t support Israel, who rapes as policy and raped at least one person to death (and it won’t just be one.) Oh, and that genocide.
The left is getting scary to the center. They won quite a few primaries, and the goal now is to take them out post-primary. The most important thing is always controlling the party, winning is secondary, especially in America where the duopoly means that whichever party is out of power knows it will soon be back in.
This is why Starmer purged the left, including kicking out Corbyn.
Platner may or may not be guilty. I don’t know. But I do know that he just made a mistake in folding. To be fair, practically all his support in the party “un-endorsed” him, but frankly, who cares. At the least he should have stuck firm till he got to choose his successor. Make it clear that they’ll have him around all election season, drawing media attention the party doesn’t want, one way or the other.
Folding never gets you anything. There is no honorable peace between the left and the establishment: there are no rules of war, and the left needs to stop acting as if there are. Platner will be smeared as a rapist either way (even if he’s never charged) and the people who believed in him will be fucked over.
(And yeah, he had plenty of red flags and someone else should have been found. But charisma is a thing, and he had it and the safer candidates didn’t.)
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Lyle
Ian this asshole had a nazi tattoo and that’s disqualifying in and of itself, full stop. If we correctly call the Azov battalion freaks nazi’s because of their tats, the same goes for this guy. Either character is destiny or it isn’t.
I’ve supported you with funding for years and I have no idea why this guys mouth noises, with NOTHING substantial to back it up, has so persuaded you and Sirota, Stoller, Grim, Klippenstein, etc. to burn your credibility to the ground for a nazi tatted blackwater merc failson.
I kept quiet the last time you glazed this asshole but you need to look in the mirror man. This guy is made entirely out of red flags, god only knows what oppo Collins didn’t even get to use from his blackwater time. Every item in his personal history backs up he’s a rapey freak in addition to the nazi tat.
The dem party never should have endorsed him at any level (Warren, Sanders, etc.) and even the neolib freaks in the DNC can like a blind squirrel find an acorn from time to time.
The answer to DNC fecklessness is not nazi tatted blackwater mercs. Holy fuck. You fucking know better and shouldn’t have to be told this.
Ian Welsh
Reasonable points,
he still shouldn’t have folded without getting a successor who isn’t a centrist genocide supporting Zionist. And being a Zionist comes with mass rape and mass torture.
I’ve written about him twice, is all, and I doubt I’ll write more. I wrote about attempts to remove him that are part of a long term pattern because it is.
Feral Finster
“The reason Stoller is on this is that like me he came up through the Netroots. We’ve seen this playbook over and over and over again. We recognize it.”
AIPAC wins again. Believe me, Team D and Team R are paying very close attention. Learn well The Iron Law of Oligarchy and its corollary, the Iron Law of Institutions.
Plattner certainly made AIPAC’s job easier, as did the folks who wanted so badly to believe. Of course, Bill Clinton also had a reputation for being unable to take “no” for an answer, as Juanita Broderick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey and others would testify.
But because Clinton was part of the Club, the Cool Kids Table, all the ugly rumors were pushed aside, or more likely, held back in case Clinton decided to stray.
TM
It is very sad that his murderous, mercenary past isn’t disqualifying of being in the American left. I can understand being in Maine, looking at your options and going “Well, let’s have some hope over this other ghoul.” but I don’t understand the broader support he’s garnered based on some rhetoric. It’s like we learned nothing from Obama (or Sanders or AOC… or… or…).
Oakchair
We’ve seen this playbook over and over and over again. We recognize it.
———
Al Franken, Julian Assange, Bernie Sanders on and on and on and now Platner. Next is Abdul El-Sayed.
Though maybe the ruling class will pass on him in fear that the manufactured scandals would be too conspicuous so close together.
The message is clear. Oppose the ruling class in any meaningful way and they will Platner you. Ironically the only way Platner can get his day in court is if he sues Politco and company for slander.
Soredemos
Maybe the ideal candidate is a virgin.
I mean this only semi-ironically.
j
>I don’t understand the broader support he’s garnered based on some rhetoric. It’s like we learned nothing from Obama
Nothing to understand really. There’s two main components to how we choose our leaders. First one, like all mammals, charisma. Second, rhetoric, do they use words and soundbites we like .
Things like actual track record or character don’t really register for but a handful of voters. Nobody has time to keep track of that, nor the energy to care. And the cognitive dissonance required to turn away from a leader, or anything for that matter, that you have invested into emotionally is huge, usually you will fight tooth and nail to rationalize, cope, and hope away any cracks in the mirror. This is how we get those Trump 3d chess ideas and so on.
This is also why we learned nothing from Obama.
somecomputerguy
Have a look at The Young Turks and Ryan Grims reporting on this; there is less here than is advertised. The usual markers of a credible accusation are being deliberately simulated rhetorically.
bruce wilder
This is how money rules. It is not a moral case against his character, being weighed by voters, that matters. Platner said this clearly. It is the withdrawal of funding and technical support provided by the Party apparatus. The “scandal” is propaganda whipped up by professional propagandists to provide a plausible cover story for that withdrawal. And, to innoculate quite a few who had been drawn into support for Platner against the contagion of hope from a populist left.
None of the professionals involved care much about a Senate seat. They know there is no chance a Democratic “replacement” candidate can step into this mud pit now and come out clean enough to beat Collins.
Platner as marketed was “on brand” for a representative of an emerging populist left in the Democratic Party, including his policy platform. Setting off this well-timed series of neutron bomb scandals — really just one scandal narrative repeated at well-planned intervals — is about destroying not just Platner but “the brand” — this particular brand idea of what a populist left might look like in Democratic Party garb. The Platner brand of populist left was retro in its basic conception of “working class” and a combat veteran who was antiwar and anti-oligarch; the scandal was designed as a morality play cum Democratic Party brand extension, playing on dark fantasies of the stereotype of sexually aggressive tatted working-class and taking him out with the testimony of empowered, professional women. The message is clear: never try this version of the populist left gambit again; the knives are out and the knives will always be out.
spud
i have said for years, we can’t vote our way out of this. there is a ever so slight, and i mean slight chance by freeing up the gerrymandered house, but that requires the same people who represent the oligarchs, to vote on it. very dubious indeed.
but as Feral Finster has said, and i will include biden in this, the democrat party is the party of rape is ok, as long as you are a neo-liberal.
after the purges of the democrat party by the clintonites, the party reminds me of the Charles Laughton part in Spartacus, completely rotten and corrupt to its core. with the belief they are at the table, whilst the stephen miller types are sharpening their knives, and are coming for them.
they are completely oblivious to this fact.
bill clinton was a rapist, a white supremacist, and had nazi leanings. it was all well documented. i said in 1993, where is the outrage!
anyone who is outraged by platner, needs to walk the talk and demand bill clinton should stand for his crimes.
StewartM
Soredemos
Maybe the ideal candidate is a virgin.
You’re exactly right. The issue is (and this is NOT just a problem with the Dem leadership, but with the base too) that the importance of “sexual politics” is elevated, who won’t vote for a candidate who’s not lived the sexual life of a saint.
Only the D base devours their own candidates. The Rs vote for them regardless; the Evangelical R base knows Trump’s sex life runs counter to nearly everything they say they believe, and also know that Grindr use spikes at R conventions (to the point of causing outages!!), but they tell themselves and each other that Trump is King Cyrus doing God’s work and keep pulling that lever. I know because I have evangelical relatives and friends who tell me this.
A FDR or a JFK winning a D primary today? Forgettaboutit. We’ve forgotten Kinsey, and now believe once again that “normal” human sexual behavior is at most 1 standard deviation away from a social ideal.
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If Platner is as good as it gets, the “Left” is pathetic. I get it about the Dem establishment and agree with the criticism. Platner is not the answer to that. There are millions upon millions of people out there. Where are all the Lenins? The Stalins? The Maos? The Ho Chi Minhs? They surely don”t make them like that anymore, do they?
My inside sources tell me Katz will be working with Luigi Mangione for a run at POTUS in 2027. It doesn’t matter if he’s a felon or an accused felon and in fact, Katz has determined it’s actually very much in his favor.
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Oppose the ruling class in any meaningful way and they will Platner you.
Platner platnered himself. The Dems just seized on it. Quit feeding the Dem establishment crocodiles raw meat. Instead, take their water away and let them dehydrate in the sun.
TM
@j
> “Things like actual track record or character don’t really register for but a handful of voters. Nobody has time to keep track of that, nor the energy to care. And the cognitive dissonance required to turn away from a leader, or anything for that matter, that you have invested into emotionally is huge, usually you will fight tooth and nail to rationalize, cope, and hope away any cracks in the mirror. This is how we get those Trump 3d chess ideas and so on.”
Agreed, well said. I’m thinking more of the media left, Stoller is usually sensible and solid, for example.
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Seriously? Both of my comments were on point. No doubt a point you don’t agree with, but on point nonetheless. I was just watching Vaush and he pretty much has said the same thing I have said, so I know I’m not alone in my sentiment.
Carborundum
I would strongly agree with the notion that better candidates should be found. As near as I can tell, the sum total of this guy’s popular appeal breaks down to the perceived contradiction of sounding like Bernie Sanders but having spent significant time down range. On both counts, so what?
There’s nothing sacred about combat time or military service as an indicator that one is well qualified for electoral office, but from what I can see the US electorate appears to give huge face validity to veteran candidates. Demonstrated military service is not the good housekeeping seal of approval. If the first and second thing out of a candidate’s mouth asserting why they should be elected are their role in the nuclear family and prior service, grab your wallet and back away.
Similarly, anyone can sound progressive – same as anyone can sound like an ironclad conservative. I want to hear what the candidate has *done*. If they can’t point to something concrete (without embroidering the hell out of things), then maybe they need to do something real for a while before running for office.
The thing that folding gets Platner is that the inquisition stops – he can keep his powder dry and maybe come back after having rehabilitated his image. The public – particularly the social media public – loves themselves a good forgiveness story as long as there’s a decent interval. He doesn’t fold and there is something, or something can be manufactured (and as bad a case of PTSD as he’s had, there’s lots of material to work with), then he’s done.
Mark Level
Mostly good comments all around. The Dude was totally set-up by the Political Establishment. Due Dissidence’s first segment was on this, this morning. A few salient points they cite, using discussions between Ryan Grim and Sagar Enetji:
1. The accuser was “in a relationship with him for about 2 years,” and the night in question she texted him that she needed her glutes massaged, kind of literally a booty call, glutes = ass. Then she alleges she changed her mind (without letting him know), got distracted, then she heard him entering the apartment. Either she left the door unlocked or he had a key (unclear to me from what I know which.)
2. He allegedly came in very drunk, jumped on her where she was lying prone on a couch, she asked him to desist, she claims he didn’t. I wasn’t there, so I will never know.
3. I’ll agree with DD’s take: Platner personally “a mess.” Bad PTSD, etc. Lyle’s take that Grim, Stoller, Sirota, Klippenstein are all secret MAGA Chud misogynists siding with a rapist, doesn’t meet the Smell test, sorry. Grim savagely attacked online as if he was a Cheerleader for Bubba Clinton’s past rapes, baseless.
4. The Politico reporting was badly distorted and omitted important, basic facts. Here’s just a couple of the bigger ones, I’d encourage those sincerely curious with minds not already made up to look into the DD Piece. A) “Support from her Therapist” for the assault was shared, not months ago, when the incident allegedly occurred, but during JUNE, last month!! Oh, her texts with him did not survive, she could never produce them, nor could he.
5. Keaton Weiss of DD noted that if he actually broke into her apartment even IF she had given him a key, there should’ve been a Police Report, certainly especially if a non-consensual rape occurred (sorry for the Tautolgy there, just being careful with my written communications given how easy it is for ‘Muricans, always vulnerable to Moral Panics, to Pile On and gesture, whether they know anything first-hand or not.)
6. This goes to Sorodemos’ simple, clear point. Most Online Americans are simultaneously sex-obsessed (some are actual Incels) but exclusively obsessed on Celebrity Sex Scandals and mindless shit like that. Unhealthy, frustrated libidos. Some years back when a group of my friends would go on and on about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, taking one side or another, I was appalled and told them so. WHY would I expend 2 minutes’ thought worrying about these pampered pretty people’s silly, vacuous lives. Depp was a decent actor at one time; I’d take any of his political takes as worthless, as worthless as Sean Penn’s foaming at the mouth over his love for the Grifting Neo-Fascist Volodymyr Zelensky. Mencken’s point that Puritan psychology dominates American morons, “the desperate fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time.”
Americans are miserable, and the sex-control bunch the worst. (I don’t support rape, Epstein class abuse of children, etc. obviously.)
7. The Dimmies always fuck their campaigns up, that’s their official job, to LOSE, to bungle it and to let the “Daddies” run everything, move the Overton Window as far to the Right as fast as you can.
somecomputerguy, good point. Grim shared that Politico knew there was no evidence at the time the allegation purportedly happened whatsoever, the “Therapist” (when I was teaching Psychology I used to have a strange student who liked to wear red contact lenses sometimes to freak the other students out; he also loved to come in to class early and write on the White Board “Therapist”, “The/rapist.” I had one conversation with him in case it was a red flag, he wasn’t seriously traumatized that I could see, just games with spelling as far as I could tell.) nudged forward the required info just in time to oust Platner. DD did share the 2 Dimmie “Activists” who vetted Platner. They were doofus, stoner stereotypes, I don’t think much of the DSA, always bear in mind the Dimmie Party is several steps below that.
The whole thing was clearly a coordinated Op. The woman being interviewed by Jake Tapper, that’s evidence enough. Tapper will push the Narrative where needed, he wants utter genocide of the Gaza, West Bank Palestinians, and of the Lebanese, it’s not secret.
Plattner a mess, no argument. He killed people for Empire, a toxic bully type, but hey, he was popular with the ladies. I’ll just quote Sylvia Plath, “Every little girl loves a Fascist.” Well, Plath mostly only talking about herself, but others play out that script too. That doesn’t mean you blame the women, but when we make bad choices, we get bad results.
Plattner did not support Genocide against the Palestinians however, and THAT was his actual sin in the Political Class he runs with. More fool him. I’ll repeat a Jeanine Younis Tweet I already shared, “I’d pick Plattner over Susan Collins, because I don’t want to see another 600,000 dead civilians in Gaza” and elsewhere.
Political Class runs these overt Psyops every fucking day: WMDs everywhere in Saddam’s Palaces, “to the west, east, south and north.” Haitians eating peoples dogs, cats. In Britain, “Pakistani Rape Gangs groomed and raped 250,000 white women, and GIRLs! Ooops, actual public Health records in Britain for the year prior showed roughly 250 rapes reported to authorities, but multiply that by 1,000, gets much more attention.
U.N. report recently admitted systematic rapes of Palestinian men, women and children in Detention, without any trial, under UK-era “terrorism” laws, you’ll never hear Jake Tapper lamenting that. Or the Donald. Or any but a very few DimmieCrap pols.
In closing, the ONLY thing that matters will be who the Dimmies choose to replace him.with. I’m going to be as wary as Finster at this moment, imagine it’ll be some Zionist fanatic, so whether Collins or the challenger wins we get the result the Epstein Class wants. DD covered that Troy Jackson, the Bernie-anointed Candidate actually decent, acknowledges there is a Genocide in Gaza (and elsewhere, Captain Obvious), and says it needs to stop. They covered another tiny blonde lady, holds some state post, was a big Poobah at the Maine Holocaust Museum, I think she’s most likely to be the one anointed. Does the MHM acknowledge the Gaza Genocide? I’m betting not, but Maine is one place I’ve never wanted to visit, will never know.
Elliot Abrams, who engineered Genocides in Guatemala (200K dead, priests and nuns, Indigenous people etc. the Guatemalan Truth and Reconciliation Committee and the Vatican both documented) and mass murders in El Salvador of Union Activists, etc. during the 80s, as a “Human Rights” monitor, lied under Oath to Congress and was convicted of perjury, pardoned by Poppy Bush, is an Exec at the D.C. Holocaust Museum. That tells you all you need to know.
Decent comments from most, Oakchair, spud, usual suspects even bruce wilder, the massive ICE shooting fan, says I’m not allowed to ask him about this unless we are on an “ICE shootings thread.” Not holding my breath for Ian to start one of those. But not bad on this topic.
I’ll be surprised if this isn’t another Victory for the Genocide Epstein Class, everything going to plan.
bruce wilder
I welcome correction, because I genuinely do not know, but I was under the impression that Platner had not risen from a base in local politics as a candidate on his own mere motion. Rather he had been recruited as “a political talent” by a political consultancy interested in marketing a candidate that could credibly don a certain brand management “narrative” and run with it.
I don’t mean to deprecate Platner’s personal commitments. No sane person would invest the time and energy lightly, let alone take risk to reputation.
But, there is a certain pretense inherent to the brand management approach to political organizing, particularly when it depends on creating a “national” image and aligning with a mostly imaginary “movement”. Maine’s population is ~1.42 million but he was appealing nationally.
I can’t make much sense of the “scandal” orchestrated against him over many months, with a sharp eye on the electoral calendar, as Platner doing it to himself. I can understand it as a professional propaganda operation targeting another professional effort at constructing a brand, leveraging inherent vulnerabilities in the design of Platner’s “brand identity” given the Party’s brand identity.
The elaborate attention given over to instructing former supporters on approved routes of mental retreat and amends are kind of a tell regarding how well thought out this operation has been. And, the project is more ambitious than just taking out this one candidate — it is about slamming shut a door into the Dem Party coalition.
Dan Kelly
‘Things like actual track record or character don’t really register for but a handful of voters. Nobody has time to keep track of that, nor the energy to care.
And the cognitive dissonance required to turn away from a leader, or anything for that matter, that you have invested into emotionally is huge, usually you will fight tooth and nail to rationalize, cope, and hope away any cracks in the mirror.’
I think this is true but I also believe that were the feelings to run even deeper then most of the people who voted for Platner would be out in force themselves fighting for him or for the issues he is supposed to be a vessel for.
This goes to L&S’ points about the candidates themselves these days…a point Ian also makes when speaking of the need for real leaders or ‘statesmen’ that we just don’t seem to produce anymore.
I understand the immediate representatives who are closer to ‘the people’ – the conduit between they and Platner himself – they have been attempting to do whatever they can to maintain some form of representation and have been completely locked out by the Dem establishment.
No surprise.
We are locked out and the people we keep getting behind aren’t fighters and don’t really instill any deep feelings in people evidently – about themselves as personages or even the issues themselves or ‘what needs to be done!’ to get there.
There is also the possibilty of course that Platner was ‘a fix’ the entire time so that this sort of mess would transpire whenever they decided to pull the switch and then they have their person or persons in place who will carry on the machine’s agenda if they win.
Or Collins wins due to the fallout which is the same end.
Perfect.
Platner need not even know the ins and outs himself rather you just profile him then throw money at him and build him up and shape him and then, when you pull the switch, he acts according to his profile in the environment he’s in.
Perfect.
You say you want a revolution…
mago
Everybody’s talking everybody knows the score
Well don’t you let nobody take you down/turn you round
keep on talking/ keep on walking/baby til the cows come home.
Or the chickens come home to roost.
It’s all a livestock feedlot shit show
although the only the unmolested animal world exhibits greater dignity.
different clue
I had a thought . . . what if the recruiting, vetting, selling,etc.of Platner was all a very intelligent very well planned part of an even larger Republican Ratfuck operation? With Platner himself having no clue that all his recruiters, handlers, sellers, etc. were really Deep Republican Ratfuckers? That would explain his surprise, dismay, outrage, sense-of-betrayal at all this. If he was simply the Main Character in a long running Republican Ratfuck Hologram without even realizing it, how else would he react?
I am 69 years old. I remember Nixon. I remember Segretti. After Nixon and Segretti, anything was possible. And still is.
Oh well . . . ” It’s just a thought. Y’all have a good day” as BeauBelle of the Fifth Column Ranch say.
Since nobody knows who is whose what, vetting should always be careful and for real, and red flags should be closely regarded and studied.
JR
A personal story apropos here (I think). A few decades ago I had a business partner in a new financial advisory firm in Atlanta we started. He was a black man, with an MBA, married with three young daughters.
To find business, sometimes we’d go out and canvas the businesses in the affluent parts of the city. First time we got in his car, when he turned the ignition I almost got blown out of the car with the loudest music I’d ever heard. LL Cool Jay rapping ‘Mama said Knock You out’ in case anyone is interested.
I myself love loud music and have the sub 100% hearing to prove it, but this was another level. I said to him “You can’t be going out looking for business with this stuff rattling around in your head. How can you pull up and talk about financial stuff with businesses after listening to this and at this volume?”
A few weeks later we get back in his car and this time when the ignition key is turned I hear Rush Limbaugh. I said, “What the $#%?” He said “I’m really glad you told me to change what I listen to. I like this message. It’s good for black people to hear. Conservative values, independence, don’t rely on the government, those kind of things. They almost completely and always support democrats.”
“Okay, but not this crap. Not this racist windbag”.
Long story shorter, he started going to local Republican meetings and within a couple of months, he was moving up their hierarchy to the point where he was now set to run against Newt Gingrich in the next senator race. He was set to debate Gingrich/discuss the race on radio in a few weeks. He asked me to run his campaign and help him raise money for it, to which I replied “What the hell do I know about running a political campaign? And what do you know about the issues, I’ve never heard you give an opinion about anything political.”
Didn’t matter, he was viewed as beneficial to bring black voters into the republican party in Georgia. Also because he wasn’t knowledgeable they could use him however they wanted. He came in second in the race (there were other candidates as well).
My recollection of this may be off a tad but it all happened very fast, within months.
Jessica
I think Platner’s appeal had two elements that I have not seen addressed. One, it was not just that he spoke against the oligarchy and genocide, he seemed to have the backbone to stick to those views. The rough edges that so many are jumping on now were precisely what gave some assurance that he would actually walk his talk when he got to Washington. Second, Maine is a distinct part of the US. A good portion of its working class has gotten by with multiple jobs, especially seasonal jobs, long before that became common elsewhere. I think there is a sharper divide there between the working class and the professional managerial class. Though he seems to have started out more in higher social status, his work as an oysterman and the kind of military service that sends you home with PTSD made him genuine working class.
The ideal candidate will not be a virgin. It will be someone with the kind of rough edges that Platner has because the virgin and the PMC person with the squeaky clean personal life will be too conformist to do what is necessary. Only the Platner type will have the backbone to deliver the kind of f*** you that so many in the US want delivered to our overlords and their hypocritical moralizing.
If you doubt this, look at how Bernie folded completely under pressure (twice!) and even helped in the Russiagate trifecta ratfcuking. (Trifecta: Avoid the shift of power within the party that normally would have followed Hillary’s loss, undermine the legitimacy of the elected president*, pave the way for the war against Russia using Ukraine)
The revolution just might be televised, but it won’t be cleared with the HR Department.
*I don’t like him either, but he won the damn election. His “stolen election” tantrum after 2020 was exactly what the Russiagate election denial paved the way for.
Jessica
By the way, as of Thursday July 9th, Platner had not filed his official withdrawl from the race. Reports are that he has told his campaign folks that he will wait until the last possible day, Monday July 13th.
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One, it was not just that he spoke against the oligarchy and genocide, he seemed to have the backbone to stick to those views.
The irony of this statement makes me chuckle as so much does these days in this time when satire and reality have merged. I will give you credit, you did use the past tense which could imply you no longer see him as having the backbone.
I have to ask, why do you think he had the backbone ever? Because of the badass Nazi tattoo and guys with Nazi tattoos are real men with real conviction? Because of his prowess in Iraq wasting “towel heads” be they innocent or not? I mean, a psychopath who clamors to go back to Iraq and get his kill on for multiple tours is certainly a “man” of conviction, right?
I’m with Carb and this bullshit about emphasizing alleged military bonafides. You can’t be against these forever wars and support the military and the people that comprise it. Like I said, there are millions of people out there that are potential candidates. Choose some or all that aren’t former military despite their alleged renouncement of their complicity in war crimes. If you’re former military and you were in military intelligence or special ops, I don’t trust you and never will. You’re not a good guy or gal. You should be held to account just as those who issued your war crime orders should be held to account. You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
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There is also the possibilty of course that Platner was ‘a fix’ the entire time so that this sort of mess would transpire whenever they decided to pull the switch and then they have their person or persons in place who will carry on the machine’s agenda if they win.
Dan, this is plausible and maybe even likely, all things considered. I have to laugh. The anti-zionists will proclaim the Dem hit is purely the zionists and their lickspittles in the Dem establishment but they will stop short when you go to the next level and consider that Platner was always a poison pill to reelect Collins. I mean, he’s good buds with his stepbrother Seth Frantzman who is in Israeli intelligence afterall. That has to count for something. I don’t know about you, but I could not be buds with someone like Frantzman, be they kin or not. Frantzman repulses me and I would not ever be in his company, willingly at least.
This could explain why a “man” with such Viking-like conviction heretofore just folds like a cheap suit. This is not meant as apologia for this untrustworthy creep. I have always considered him an imposter and this strategy of thinking you can change the Dem party from within is ludicrous. There are only two options here. Accept fascism and let it play its course and ultimately collapse under the weight of its own contradictions which could take multiple decades or you revolt. There will be massive blood either way and with either way, there is no guarantee there is nirvana over the rainbow.
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Grim is downright creepy. I always have thought there is something off about the guy. Does he wear a hairpiece?
He has emphatically made the case for rape. He completely ignores the FACT that she claims she told Platner NO multiple times including NO when he said he would come over and give her a glute massage, whatever the hell that is. Ryan Grim clearly does not understand what NO means and I’m sorry, but if I’m a woman, I’m going to keep my distance from Grim, if he’s not gay of course or even if he is.
Carborundum
That man is not working class, I guarantee it. He works, and he has particularly focused on constructing that image (and I’m sure his experience working has genuinely given him insight that would make him a better representative), but that is not a working class man. There’s inter-generational money there, for sure.
To be clear, absolutely nothing wrong with inter-generational money – frankly, laudable – but don’t overlook it. Being born somewhere between first and second bases and not having the constant precarity that comes with not having reached first base is a *lot* more important than being born on third base.
I think much of this comes down to the current infatuation with image, both publicly and particularly on the part of those working inside the electoral apparatus selecting candidates for support. Yes, image has always been important, but what is different now is how very, very shallow that image commonly is – it’s image for the ‘gram, not image for the NYT editorial board. Platner is in many ways a classic meme-candidate, in the WallStreetBets sense (Platner to the mooooon!). As I understand the story, he was picked by a few outsiders and it looks to me like no one did their due diligence or, if they did, figured that their desired narrative would triumph.
The big thing to take away from this is that finding good candidates is far from impossible. The fact that this guy has gone as far as he has, with the backing he started with, clearly demonstrates that the selection process is absolutely ripe to be disrupted by outsiders who want the political process to be more than a manageable duopoly that primarily serves to provide employment for those working in their respective political machines. Me, I’d say get after it.
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The ideal candidate will not be a virgin. It will be someone with the kind of rough edges that Platner has because the virgin and the PMC person with the squeaky clean personal life will be too conformist to do what is necessary. Only the Platner type will have the backbone to deliver the kind of f*** you that so many in the US want delivered to our overlords and their hypocritical moralizing.
Bull. This is purely making the case for warlords. Only so-called “warriors” are fit to lead because they are the psychos needed to bar the even worse psychos at the door.
I could deliver that f*ck you to the overlords with ten times the conviction Platner ever could or would, but you would never vote for me let alone consider me as an option to be voted upon and THAT is the problem at hand. Any so-called opposition is no opposition at all because most if not all can’t see what is right in front of their face or the forest for the trees.
j
Whether there ever was anything of value in the guy, whether he was a threat to Dems or whether he was a plant, one thing is certain. Getting rid of him has nothing to do with him being a sex offender, whether actual, or alleged.
The leadership is chock full of sex offenders, both political parties, and C-suite folk, and also both traditional sex offenders, and Epstein island offenders. These people don’t give a rats ass about sex offenders. If anything, it’s a ticket to the big leagues.
It’s a great way to get rid of people though.
bruce wilder
remarkable consensus in comments for some variation on a conspiracy-in-plain-sight thesis.
so much of American politics is a mediashow professionally produced by an almost invisible political class and financed by a not-quite-so-invisible flood of billionaire and corporate money, how could it be otherwise?
what goes on backstage is very selectively reported and, when reported, partisans trained in kayfabe automatically rationalize or filter away the information. (DC cannot help but wonder aloud whether it could be Republican rfs all along, because . . . what, Democratic rfs have too much integrity?!?)
electoral politics does seem hopeless
Dan Kelly
‘(DC cannot help but wonder aloud whether it could be Republican rfs all along, because . . . what, Democratic rfs have too much integrity?!?)’
different clue sometimes seems to be climbing out from that silo but then inevitably falls back into the cheap monoculture grain.
If anyone ought to know better it’s different clue whose own words on the extraordinary wonders of ‘unspoiled’ nature are always a good read.
These reddit videos and the like do a job on people me thinks.
Imagine if everyone here put up little videos of themselves doing community stuff with a few others instead of videos of people none of us has ever met including those posting the videos themselves?
Who are all these people?
The promise of the internet – aside from it being the incredible ‘repository’ of information that it is…the promise was supposed to be its ‘decentralized’ nature of communication and ‘community’ but that is not how it has manifested or, more accurately, it has been intentionally steered away from whatever promise that structure may have had.
Jessica
“This is purely making the case for warlords. Only so-called “warriors” are fit to lead because they are the psychos needed to bar the even worse psychos at the door.”
There are many ways in which one could demonstrate the backbone to walk the talk. Those I can think of all make one ratfuckable one way or another.
I don’t think Mainers voted for a potential warlord. They voted for someone who had been through difficulties in life that they could recognize and who seemed to have grown from them. Someone who had been shat on enough to not pretend that what comes out of the butt of the ruling class is ice cream.
“That man is not working class, I guarantee it. ”
Agreed. I forget the details, but he didn’t grow up an oysterman. But a lot of his life, especially its difficulties, are more recognizable to the working class than to folks who have had an easier time of things materially.
Jessica
During the Protestant Reformation, there were different attitudes toward the efficacy of human action to avoid sin. One attitude saw humans and our actions as inherently flawed, inherently vulnerable to sin. That being the case, the important thing was to beg forgiveness, to admit one’s weakness and, in faith, throw oneself at the mercy of God. One could see this in action when one fundamentalist preacher or another would be caught sexually cheating or being homosexual. There they would be on TV, blubbering and saying that Jesus had forgiven them. Their followers would forgive them but folks not of that attitude would stare in incredulity.
What this attitude demands is not absence of sin but willingness to fall apart at God’s feet when one does sin.
The second attitude sees humans as more capable of resisting sin and therefore more responsible. This attitude can, and in the US now and during Puritan times, can be very unforgiving.
I think that what many folks of the “sin is unavoidable, repent” school found unforgiveable about Bill Clinton was not his womanizing, but his sneaky way of avoiding confession and repentance. If he had blubberingly confessed his weakness, they might have forgiven him, though most of his liberal supporters would have thrown up.
Most of what is left of center in the US now is dominated by an unforgiving attitude. One fall and one is marked for life. No one can learn from and go beyond the wrong background. It is like the worst caricature of Maoist excess. (Exceptions have been made for Republicans who support mass murder and attack Trump.)
This makes it child’s play for our amoral elites to pick off anyone who threatens their gravy train.
During the long decades from the start of (western) Rome’s collapse (378? 395?) until final collapse in 476, while the elites hid in Ravenna safely shielded by its swamps, there were a number of leaders who tried to right the ship (as was done successfully in the late 200s). Each in turn was assassinated. We are more genteel about these things now. Character assassination will suffice.
I am not saying that Platner could have saved the republic, but even those who disliked him from the get go might choose to be aware that he is being publicly broken (with a story that is already coming apart) to set an example. An example that will be seared into the memory of that other candidate who will really be what Platner, in the eyes of some, only pretended to be.
Centuries of oppression of African-Americans and women have been relaxed in recent decades and generations of accumulated pain are being aired out. Unfortunately, this is often done in a way that encourages identification with the pain rather than healing. This reinforces the deeper structures that created the oppression in the first place but does generate social capital for those who identify with the pain.
I mention this because this is one of the factors that makes ratfucking so potent. Regardless of what did or did not happen between Platner and Racicot, too many women have been in the position that she is claimed to have been in. Women now and women in generations past. This painful accumulated collective memory has been weaponized to paralyze inquiry and force the lockstep response desired by those servants of the elites wielding that weapon.
Jessica
Platner has officially withdrawn.
Now the pro-genocide/pro-oligarchy ratfuckers will move on to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. If they can’t find anything real to work from, they’ll just make it up whole cloth. %^&*
Some days I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.
somecomputerguy
If you watch one of his speeches, Graham Platner’s appeal is the least mysterious thing in the universe.
He looks you straight in the eye, and say’s things like; “The Wealthy stole the life you deserve. Together, we’re going to get it back.”
Troy Jackson, the replacement we should be praying for, believes all the same things as Platner, but even he doesn’t talk like this. Neither does Bernie.
None of the potential 2028 presidential candidates come close. If Platner had made to the Senate, he would have been the next President as well.
Another Bernie, but spoiling for a fight instead of compromise.
different clue
Well, if El-Sayed stays on the ballot long enough to be votable-about in the primary, at least I will have that chance to vote for him for candidate.
different clue
If Platner wants revenge, he can always run as an Independent, if he files all the right paper on time.