Agreed. I’d support a possible fascist over a confirmed fascist any day. Those really are the only two choices here, unfortunately.
(I mean, I’m sure the fascism “concerns” Collins, but that’s little comfort as they round people up for the camps.)
He used to have a tattoo! What more proof do you need that as soon as he’s elected he’s going to grind all of Congress to a halt until they pass the Jews Aren’t People Act?!
You can add DrDeth to the “doesn’t want to admit it’s a Nazi symbol” camp.
My cite that it didn’t happen is that ZS said it did.
Good enough for me!
The answer is just very, very obviously yes. A 50% chance of success is better than a 100% chance of failure.
The chance that Platner turns and votes with Republicans more than Collins is basically nil.
As it is right now, I consider the chance of either of them voting with the Democrats to be negligible.
I’m not sure if I said this before in this thread (too lazy to check) but as much as we (rightfully) gripe about John Fetterman, he still votes in line with Democrats the vast majority of the time.
So even if this guy pulls a Fetterman, and goes semi-MAGA (which is still just wild speculation), he’d still be better than Collins. (Just as Fetterman is still better than having Dr. Oz in the Senate.)
Once you get past the primaries, your options are limited, often having to pick the least bad choice.
This is just bullshit. Here’s his platform. Which items seem like something a Republican would vote for:
- Ban billionaires buying elections
- Rebuild our failing healthcare system
- Support Small Business – Break Up the Monopolies
- Stop the mass deportation machine; pass real immigration reform
- Defend our air, our water, our land and our climate
- Decisive action on the housing crisis
- Defend Medicare and Medicaid
- Protect Social Security – before it goes bankrupt
- End Billionaire Welfare, Pass a Cost-of-Living Tax Cut
- Uphold tribal sovereignty and self-determination
- Defend democracy and the Constitution
- Strengthen our working waterfront
- Support unions, and bring good union jobs to Maine
- Defend and support public schools
- Keep government out of our private lives; defend the right to choose
- Protect Maine’s economy: raise the federal minimum wage
- Equality for ALL
- The War in Gaza
- End the failed War on Drugs
- Take on waste and corruption at the Pentagon; rebuild American shipbuilding
- No more pointless wars
- Address the childcare crisis
- Support Americans with disabilities
- Pay servicemen a fair wage; no more servicemen on food stamps
- Defend the VA and support our veterans
- Defend the Post Office and establish postal banking
- Pass term limits – and hold politicians to their term limits pledges
Considering that Platner is running to the left of the Democratic mainstream, this idea that he’s going to turn out to be a closet Republican frankly bewilders me.
And here’s his actual record:
I guess we should never elect anyone who isn’t already an incumbent, then. I foresee no problems with that approach.
Especially in the current electoral context. Platner’s been a full-on, SS-tattoo loving Nazi for twenty years, and wants to get into politics, but he doesn’t run as a Republican in 2016? Or 2024? He doesn’t run as a member of the explicitly white supremacist party that’s experiencing an unprecedented resurgence… he instead decides to run as a progressive, with a secret plan to reveal himself as a full-on Nazi once he gets elected? And I guess this has been his plan for two decades now, because still nobody can find any examples of him advocating for actual far-right ideas or policies?
I do think there’s a danger of Platner running to the right if he wins, but I don’t see him going any further than a standard centrist/corporatist Democrat, which happens to a lot of “progressives” once they’re in office. I think there’s a much greater chance that he just turns out to be a scandal-plagued, incompetent buffoon who doesn’t get much done because he can’t stop stepping on his own dick.
But the idea that he’s got a full on SS uniform in the closet that he’s just waiting for his inauguration to put on? That’s just fuckin’ dumb.
Yup. I don’t think he’ll go full right-wing. He might go full dumbass, though. Pick your poison.
Full dumbass as one member of a 100 member senate is definitely better than a fascist-enabler member. Now, as president, I probably don’t want to go full dumbass, but it appears we’ve already done that.
Not to the Senate, no. And not to anything, when they wore a Nazi tattoo for years.
So you’re supporting Trump and Collins, then.
No, we shouldn’t have elected a guy with no record to the Presidency, either. The House is the entry-level job for politics.
You’re supporting Trump by supporting Collins, since she has a voting record. The only other option is Platner.
So, Collins or Platner, you’re a Maine voter, what do you do?
So you’d be opposed to electing a Senate candidate who was, let’s say, a second-term state legislator who’d never held federal office before?
And putting them in the White House before they even finished that first term in the Senate would be out of the question.