The Graham Platner Debacle: Why Progressives Can't Win With Working Class Voters
It wasn’t just that the Democrats ignored Platner’s massive flaws. Those flaws were a big part of his appeal, the basis of the mythos they were building around him as a "real man."
Calls are mounting for Graham Platner, the Democrats’ scandal-plagued candidate for Senate in Maine, to drop out after a former girlfriend told Politico he raped her five years ago. “We had no idea he was capable of rape!” progressives are shouting from the rooftops—about a man who has a Nazi tattoo, who blamed women for their own sexual assaults, who was on a messaging app known for protecting predators, and who was accused of roughing up his ex-girlfriend in the New York Times.
It’s always the people you least expect!
But it wasn’t just that the Democrats ignored Platner’s obvious character flaws throughout his campaign. They were a big part of his appeal. His character flaws played a major role in building up the mythos progressives were creating around their “Maine oysterman,” that Platner was a real man, unlike these other “HR lady” approved candidates, unlike these other candidates grown “in a vat,” as his progressive defenders and handlers loved to say.
The people who hand-picked Graham Platner for Maine actually found some of his worst Reddit posts before enlisting him as a candidate. These included racist rants about Black people not tipping, telling women to take responsibility for being sexually assaulted, and mockery of veterans. Yet the activists told the WSJ they didn’t find them disqualifying.
“Part of our thesis here is that people do not want their candidates grown in vats. They want people who are real human beings,” socialist recruiter Daniel Moraff says.
Platner was to be the Democrats’ ticket back to men, back to the working class, out of the vat full of HR lady approved beta males; far from a dealbreaker, his Reddit posts, his nasty tattoo, his habit of throwing around his ex-girlfriend and cheating on his wife made the mythology around him even more compelling to progressives. To the college-educated elites leading progressive politics, these were signifiers of a traditional masculinity, their ticket back to the working class.
But while Nepo-baby elites and trust fund socialists were willing to forgive Platner a Nazi tattoo and roughing up his ex-girlfriend, actual working class voters were not.
Platner was polling ahead of Republican incumber Susan Collins by two points, but he’d absolutely cratered with working-class voters. Susan Collins had a 21 point lead against Platner with working-class voters last week. Platner was demolishing Collins with college-educated voters—by 34 points.
Working-class Mainers were also 20 points more likely to say that Graham Platner has a bad character than Mainers with a college degree. Men were 11 points more likely. Platner was cleaning Collins’ clock with women, leading her by eight points. So much for solidarity! As I noted when the poll came out, college-educated women, those very HR ladies the progressives were delighted had been vanquished, looked at Platner, who shoved and manhandled his ex girlfriend and locked her in a room and thought, “Me, too.”
Platner’s progressive male defenders, themselves closer on the masculinity spectrum to the HR ladies they so abhor than they are to the working class men they pretend to represent, were hoping that Platner’s working-class masquerade as a champion of the working man would work. But the only people who were convinced were the HR ladies.
This attempt to win back the working class by backing an absolute scumbag failed with the very people it was supposed to attract, while attracting the very people it was supposed to repudiate.
Of course, Democrats are already patting themselves on the back for calling on him to resign, casting themselves as somehow better than Republicans because after defending accusations of physical abuse and a Nazi tattoo, they drew the line at rape.
I’m sorry, but no.
Even the mea culpas are just more justifications. In the New York Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg writes,
“If there’s a lesson here, it might be about the importance of listening hard to the people telling you what you don’t want to hear. Many Democrats, disgusted by their party’s failure to contain Donald Trump, want representatives as furious as they are, and they no longer trust their leaders to tell them who is electable. That opens space up for outsider candidates who wouldn’t have had a chance a few years ago. It also makes it easier for unfit characters to escape proper vetting.”
What are they so angry about that justifies electing a Nazi? That justifies backing a physically abusive man?
What are these college-educated women so angry about that they were willing to throw #MeToo to the wind—literally arguing that Republican women cannot be victims of abuse?
The whole point of progressive politics is supposed to be about the working class, yet it is educated, well off voters who are so angry at our current political moment they were willing to forgive a Nazi tattoo—while working class Mainers felt Platner’s character failings unforgivable.
That is the real lesson here: Progressives still have no idea what working class Americans want.
"far from a dealbreaker, his Reddit posts, his nasty tattoo, his habit of throwing around his ex-girlfriend and cheating on his wife made the mythology around him even more compelling to progressives. To the college-educated elites leading progressive politics, these were signifiers of a traditional masculinity, their ticket back to the working class". THIS just goes to show how out of touch these elitist Dems are with real men. Do they really think most men act like that? That "tradtional masculinity" is infidelity, abuse of women, and tatoos? Nice to see what they truly think of us
“If there’s a lesson here, it might be about the importance of listening hard to the people telling you what you don’t want to hear. Many Democrats, disgusted by their party’s failure to contain Donald Trump, want representatives as furious as they are, and they no longer trust their leaders to tell them who is electable. That opens space up for outsider candidates who wouldn’t have had a chance a few years ago. It also makes it easier for unfit characters to escape proper vetting.”
No, the lesson here is that traditional media are utterly compromised. The NYT is once again exposed as corporate PR for their preferred political parties, yet there are still people naive enough to take them at their word.