No I don’t.
I think the selection of Platner as a frontline soldier in the critical fight against fascism is strong evidence given the enormous amount of red flags surrounding the guy that America is woefully ill-equipped to win this fight. You think he’s the best you can do. That isn’t a contradiction.
The party hasn’t selected candidates since 1968.
Again, the evidence keeps piling up.
Do you get that you’ve restated my point, but with perhaps even more emphasis and cynicism?
I would stick with the more narrow point that politicians can only be judged by their track record of what they’ve actually done. If you’d like to suggest that they’re all bums and liars whose words can’t be trusted at all, this theory also works too, but consistency requires you to admit that Platner comes out worst in this analysis, as we only have his words to go on, plus a sketchy tattoo and some troubling behaviors, and no governing record whatsoever.
When it was only about a tattoo, I was willing to stand up and make that (weak) case. But it’s not only a tattoo anymore. Additional allegations have come out. These won’t be the last, and most likely they won’t be the worst, either.
At the risk of repeating myself:
and
I am not a Maine voter, but current reality is current reality. He is the least poor choice available at this point in time. If I was a Maine voter I would vote for him. Including in the primary as my read of the polling is that Mills would lose big and that Platner has a very good chance of winning. And flipping that Senate seat is hugely important.
Doing something that makes it more likely that seat stays R is a vote for fascism in progress. Real world right now with people dying. Here and across the world. Impacting generations. It is a vote for a Trump without any constraints.
To me that is deadly serious.
If your answer to my question about robust candidate selection in a fight for the soul of America is:
We picked a dumbass.
then you see how that’s bad, right?
Edited to avoid unfair paraphrasing
Again, this is not evidence of a robust and well-oiled fascism fighting machine.
I mean, yeah? I’ve called him a dumbass, stupid tendencies, wisdom dump stat–did you think those were compliments?
But I’m distinguishing between this regrettable state of affairs and the claims that he’s a Nazi.
As for a “robust and well-oiled fascism fighting machine,” because I don’t live in Narnia, that’s not a characterization I would apply to the United States.
Seriously: We, America, are not that. It is reality that we are not. Look at who is leading us and consider that we asked for that.
Well quite. But considering that fascism fighting is what’s required, a robust and well-oiled machine is what’s needed and part of building that might be grassroots enforcement of basic standards of candidate selection.
You called him those things in an argument defending his selection as a candidate.
The standard you tolerate is the standard you set. Do you really feel you/the Democrat Party cannot or should not aim even a little bit higher? Are there risks to setting the bar this low? Is this really as good as it gets or is it worth fighting for better?
It’s easy to armchair quarterback. What’s step one in your proposal, and how are you enacting it?
To continue your metaphor: Platner is absolutely not part of a well-oiled fascism-fighting machine. He’s a rusty spike, a clanky gear, an ornery goat hooked up to the machine. But Maine’s alternatives consist 100% of the people who have decided to run for Senate in Maine. Maine voters don’t have an alternative that’s well-oiled. They could vote for Mills, who would probably get run over by the fascist machine; or they could vote for Collins, who’s a gear in the well-oiled fascist machine.
So sure: wring your hands that nobody better than Platner is running. I’ll wring right beside you. But unless you’re nominating yourself, we have who we have.
Nonsense.
I should probably say for what it’s worth that I think anyone voting in Maine in November should hold their nose and vote Platner, in extremis.
But I also think that forcing such a shitty choice on people is extremely corrosive for democracy and fundamentally weakens the ability to maintain the vital moral high ground necessary to fight of fascist ideology.
Who, specifically, is forcing this choice on people? Can you name names? Or are you just saying we have a shitty system? I agree with the latter and have been saying so for decades.
I’m going to be voting for Congress for a good old boy from a local farming/political dynasty who refuses to talk specifics about issues. I’m not pleased about it, but it’s the best I can do in the fight against fascism.
Worst possible one there could be, except for all the others, as the saying goes.
The voters of Maine, more Independents than either party, are who they are. All polling says they dislike Mills even more than they dislike Collins. They want someone who they read as neither GOP or the Democratic establishment brand. One of them warts past problems and all. The ideal candidate who you’d like best, who I’d like best, and who could defeat Collins, did not run, if they exist at all.
Bemoan that the choice is what it is, and it still is what it is.
The seat must be flipped.
I assume you mean for Senate; otherwise I’d have to ask who selected Kamala Harris when Biden withdrew.
Nah. The fact that there’s an obvious fuck up such that I can sit here 3000 miles away and point at it while saying “this is an obvious fuck up” does not in fact transfer the responsibility for fixing it on to me.
But as you ask, there are obvious vetting and talent spotting problems which seem to me to be quite critical, and from what @crowmanyclouds says a total lack of professional party structures so I’d start there.
You asked about naming names - I see Platner was originally hunted from obscurity as a “beat Collins” candidate by various unions, Jason Shedlock being apparently highly involved. But also endorsed by Sanders, Warren, Reich, Gallego and Heinrich, all of whom are old enough and experienced enough to know better, and certainly should have the sense to do some basic vetting before lending their name to an unknown.
There is a wider problem, which is the coarsening and infantilising of American political discourse over the past 18 years such that the absurd idea that the only candidate who can win over voters is ruffntuff hurlyburly mansman, which mould Platner appears to fit in the most superficial and unconsidered way possible, has become recieved wisdom even on the left. Any degree of pushback on this nonsense would be welcome.
I mean, my opening topic sentence was: America is not a serious country. So yes. It seems we are in furious agreement on this.
When I was younger, I dated a woman who was kind of a “wild child”, the kind of person who would “try anything once”. And she wasn’t very educated.
One day she invited me to go ride with a biker gang she hung around with. I said sure.
She got back to me in a couple of days, and said I woud be riding with a large Lesbian nicknamed ‘Bertha’.
The night before the ride, she told me one small detail: their helmets have swastikas on them.
I asked her if these people were Nazi/Neo-Nazi/Nazi sympathizers. Not at all, she said. It was just part of the look.
I declined going on the ride. I explained that because I held a security clearance, I was not allowed to belong to hate groups, and that it might be hard to convince the security division that my friends wearing swastikas were not a hate group.
Nevermind, I’m just knee jerking.