# People defending Graham Platner are pathetic and intellectually bankrupt **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 12, 2026, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839 "2026-06-12T02:58:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/521 "2026-07-09T00:11:47Z")
A key figure in the Platner campaign has resigned his post as organizing director for the Maine Democratic Party, after the party announced that Platner could not dictate terms for selecting his replacement as nominee. > > > Nathan Bernard @nathanTbernard It looks as if cult-like support for Platner takes precedence over coming together to defeat Susan Collins. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/522 "2026-07-09T00:25:16Z")
Hallelujah! > **[Graham Platner drops out of Senate race, allowing Maine Democrats to replace him](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/graham-platner-drops-senate-bid-maine-rcna353199)** > > His decision comes within days of a key deadline, allowing Maine’s Democratic Party to select a new candidate to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a critical contest for Senate control. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/523 "2026-07-09T00:26:50Z")
Congratulations to Senator Collins on her imminent reelection. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/524 "2026-07-09T00:29:38Z")
Let’s go Troy Jackson! Dems chances in Maine just improved a bit, and I’m excited to see who gets picked (and how). ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/525 "2026-07-09T00:31:25Z")
> “We believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me. And for that reason, we are suspending campaign operations,” Platner continued. “We’re not doing it because of the allegations, we’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.” Still a piece of shit to the bitter end! ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/526 "2026-07-09T02:13:40Z")
At least he dropped out. If he wants to say nasty stuff on his way out, so be it. Hopefully we can run a good candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/527 "2026-07-09T02:17:12Z")
> [@Platner](#): > > I learned about (the rape allegation) through press inquiries, with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations before a corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end. [Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner suspends campaign after sexual assault allegation - ABC News](https://abcnews.com/Politics/maine-democratic-senate-candidate-graham-platner-suspends-campaign/story?id=134536907) Yeah, that corporate media giant Politico really done him wrong, along with a raft of progressive Democratic figures who have morphed into the “establishment”. He should have been given until November to show us the real Graham. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/528 "2026-07-09T09:15:47Z")
Emily Suttle-Braun, a woman who had formerly dated Platner came out with a beautiful piece today > We say we believe women. What we usually mean is that we believe women when it is cheap. We believe them when the accused is a stranger or a Republican or a man none of us liked anyway. The real test is what you do when believing her costs you something. When the man is your friend. When he was good to you. When you have the texts on your phone to prove he was never anything but kind to you. > > Here is what I know and what I do not. I know the man I dated 10 years ago. But I do not know who he was in a relationship in 2021, because I was not there. Abuse does not announce itself evenly to everyone a person has ever dated. My good experience is not evidence against these women’s accounts. It is only my experience. > **[I dated Graham Platner. I believe Jenny Racicot and Lyndsey Fifield.](https://www.newsweek.com/i-dated-graham-platner-i-believe-jenny-racicot-and-lyndsey-fifield-12172864)** > > 'Believe women' cannot be a phrase we reserve for our enemies. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/529 "2026-07-09T19:09:41Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > I don’t know if there is a fool proof way to select candidates but the Democratic _voters_ wanted the current system after Humphrey’s loss to Nixon in a landslide. I was watching the election in 1968. I was there. I remember. It was no landslide. It was one of the closest elections in American history. The landslide was Nixon’s re-election in 1972. Which America soon came to regret. In November '72 Nixon was at the tip-top of success. In August 1974 he ran away with tail between legs. Just 21 months from apogee to crash landing. Right about the midpoint of that period, October '73, came the Saturday Night Massacre, where Nixon openly showed his corruption, making it the inflection point, as it was all downhill from there. The old smoke-filled rooms in 1968 gave us Humphrey and a loss to Nixon. The primaries of '72 gave us McGovern and a loss to Nixon. Lesson to be drawn from this? Magic 8-Ball says it’s murky. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/530 "2026-07-09T19:12:02Z")
Yes, I did conflate '68 with '72 somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/531 "2026-07-09T19:12:41Z")
Ah, “conflate” is way overused these days. Old-fashionly, you confused them. Conflate is Latin for ‘blow together’ like windblown trash in the corner of an alley, confuse means ‘pour together’. ETA: Maybe because words are gaseous rather than liquid, “conflate” really would be more appropriate, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/532 "2026-07-09T19:21:25Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > ETA: Maybe because words are gaseous rather than liquid, “conflate” really would be more appropriate, come to think of it. Yeah; conflate means to treat two things as the same when they aren’t, so it could maybe apply here. Though I agree that it does seem more like confusing one for the other, rather than believing they were both the same. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/533 "2026-07-09T19:28:10Z")
After the 2024 election, Democrats were saying: We have to get the “bro” vote. Let’s run a “bro” for office. What could go wrong? I dug into the dictionary about what does “bro culture” mean. It’s characterized by an attitude of “laddishness.” What is “laddish”? It refers to “Jack-the-lad.” The archetypal Jack-the-lad is a cocky white guy who thinks rules don’t apply to him. He can be of any socioeconomic class, though the worst ones are usually rich muffucks. If you raise such a person to high office, you will come to grief. Who could have predicted that a “bro” would turn out to have poor moral character? Rather, I think the corny old tried-and-true standards for uprightness, like honest commitment to civic betterment, is still our best bet. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/534 "2026-07-09T20:08:12Z")
Somehow, the activists who “vetted” Platner and urged him to run, seeing him as down-to-earth working class, failed to notice he came from a well-to-do family that could afford to send him to an exclusive boarding academy for his high school education.\* \*[Hotchkiss](https://www.hotchkiss.org/), from which he was expelled. \*\*I have a feeling they won’t be selecting him as “Alum of the Month”. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/535 "2026-07-09T21:04:29Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Yeah, that corporate media giant Politico really done him wrong, along with a raft of progressive Democratic figures who have morphed into the “establishment”. Somehow in the Platner-world view, Chuck Schumer—and AIPAC, don’t forget AIPAC!!—control _ **everything** _. They decide who the candidates will be and they decide the outcome of every vote. This is being argued with straight faces on every social media outlet, I hear (I don’t look at all of them). Platner, that shining star, was brought down by “corporate Democrats”…which seems to be a thinly-veiled reference to The Jews. In that world view, Donald Trump is really not that much of a problem. Kind of neutral, really. It’s AIPAC and ISRAEL that are the source of all the nation’s problems (not to mention the world’s). Not a pleasant headspace to be in, I’d think. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/536 "2026-07-09T21:20:29Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > This is being argued with straight faces on every social media outlet, I hear (I don’t look at all of them). Platner, that shining star, was brought down by “corporate Democrats”…which seems to be a thinly-veiled reference to The Jews. Something similar (thankfully without the antisemitism) was being argued in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/537 "2026-07-09T21:57:15Z")
Certainly it’s not safe to assume that someone who identifies as being ‘_on the left_’ or _'voting Democratic Party_’ (in general) will see Trump and Republicans as the **main** problem facing the USA. To me that seems bizarre. But it does appear to be the case that some who’d say they’re on the left, see some _other_ persons or groups as being the **main** problem. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/538 "2026-07-09T22:03:24Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Somehow in the Platner-world view, Chuck Schumer—and AIPAC, don’t forget AIPAC!!—control _ **everything** _. They decide who the candidates will be and they decide the outcome of every vote. > > This is being argued with straight faces on every social media outlet, I hear (I don’t look at all of them). Platner, that shining star, was brought down by “corporate Democrats”…which seems to be a thinly-veiled reference to The Jews. > > In that world view, Donald Trump is really not that much of a problem. Kind of neutral, really. It’s AIPAC and ISRAEL that are the source of all the nation’s problems (not to mention the world’s). > > Not a pleasant headspace to be in, I’d think. If only Platner had communicated these views to us in some way _before_ the primary, all of this could have been avoided. For example, if Platner had found some ideological group with similar views on Jews and their nefarious control over political and global events, and had identified himself with said group somehow, like by wearing a T Shirt with their logo or perhaps inking one of their symbols into his skin, we could have predicted that he might hold these sort of views and avoided selecting him as the Democratic candidate to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/539 "2026-07-09T22:14:35Z")
The Tattoo was certainly a clue. I can see some virtue in the arguments made by the ‘_GETTING it can be explained, but he’s likely lying about when he knew it was objectionable_’ cohort. But aside from Platner being part of the group that sees ‘someone else’ as being a bigger problem for the nation than Trump, there’s the issue that the _Democratic Party as a whole_ is split into the ‘see GOP/Trump as the main issue’ faction and the ‘see Some Other Group as the main issue’ faction. And that’s a major problem. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839/540 "2026-07-09T22:20:54Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > But aside from Platner being part of the group that sees ‘someone else’ as being a bigger problem for the nation than Trump, there’s the issue that the _Democratic Party as a whole_ is split into the ‘see GOP/Trump as the main issue’ faction and the ‘see Some Other Group as the main issue’ faction. > > And that’s a major problem. It seemed to be something of a problem for the Harris campaign also. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-defending-graham-platner-are-pathetic-and-intellectually-bankrupt/1030839.md?page=28)