When the latest allegations about Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner were published in The New York Times, involving on-the-record testimony from ex-girlfriends about “volatile and ‘toxic’ relationships that were … demeaning to women and, in at least one case, even physically threatening,” several prominent supporters immediately defended him. They sought to sow doubt about the woman with the most serious charges because of her Republican ties, while also downplaying the significance of her claim that Platner once “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told a reporter, “Seems like a lot of nothing. I mean, the only one who had anything to say that seemed ‘unsettling’ was a woman who works for right-wing political operations.” Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report podcast similarly shrugged it off: “Unless there’s something else coming, the big NYT exposé is that Platner was a bad boyfriend to some women but also a good boyfriend to other women?” (Platner, on MS NOW, denied “anything alleging physicality.”)
The arguments being made to rationalize and downplay not just the new allegations but also Platner’s extramarital sexting and offensive social media comments are reminiscent of the arguments made nearly 30 years ago. In 1998, when Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was revealed, Democrats condemned the behavior but nevertheless rallied around their president and argued that private indiscretion is not relevant to a politician’s public service.
Gloria Steinem crystallized the defense, from a feminist perspective, in a New York Times op-ed: “[I]f the President had behaved with comparable insensitivity toward environmentalists, and at the same time remained their most crucial champion and bulwark against an anti-environmental Congress, would they be expected to desert him? I don’t think so.” She concluded by warning we should not “disqualify energy and talent the country needs.”
Clinton became president after 12 long years of Republican rule. Bereft Democrats wondered if they could ever regain power. The syrupy-smooth Arkansan, by way of Yale and Oxford, returns them to the political Promised Land. Maybe they could never do it again without him.
Presuming Clinton was indispensable blinded Democrats from two truths. One, an affair with your subordinate, even a consensual one, corrupts the workplace and should not be acceptable on the public’s time and dime. Two, he was not indispensable. Had Clinton been willing to accept that his inappropriate behavior warranted his resignation, he wouldn’t have handed power to the Republicans. His fellow Democrat, Vice President Al Gore, would have been elevated to the presidency, which might have strengthened his hand in the 2000 election.
Intertwined with the Clinton defense was the argument that lower standards for politicians’ personal behavior were acceptable, maybe even a positive. At a women’s roundtable convened by the New York Observer (published with the headline—and I am not making this up—“New York Supergals Love That Naughty Prez”), Katie Rophie offered, “I think that everyone isn’t sure whether adultery is not wrong. Or, you know, all of the polls, people keep saying, ‘Well, you know, is Clinton trying to behave with the same moral values as everyone else?’ And most people say, ‘Yes, he’s trying.’” The restaurateur Maguy LeCoze added that in her home country of France, “They don’t understand why the Americans are so difficult about sex when he’s doing a very good job.”
Decades later, the formerly sanctimonious Republicans embraced Donald Trump and proceeded to make excuses for marital infidelities, dismiss his own “grab ‘em by the pussy” comments, and wave off allegations of sexual misconduct. By 2024, Republicans had to look away from the civil jury verdict deeming Trump liable for sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll and the criminal guilty verdicts of financial fraud stemming from the cover-up of his affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels.
But the Trump Era also produced the #MeToo movement, which fueled a reckoning with sexual misconduct that led to the resignations of several politicians in both parties, as Democrats especially grew reluctant to circle the wagons around accused colleagues. Just this year, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell and his Republican colleague, Tony Gonzales, quit Congress simultaneously, once faced with a bipartisan threat of expulsion over sexual misconduct allegations. We also saw the successful bipartisan effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, which sparked recriminations for those in his orbit. And there is a related bipartisan push to clean up Capitol Hill’s workplace culture.
Yet, as I noted last week, Republican involvement in this push stops well short of holding President Trump to account with impeachment and conviction, despite the jury verdicts he sustained before recapturing the presidency. To many rank-and-file Republicans, Trump is indispensable. Unlike Clinton, Trump’s job approval has tanked, so the argument of his political necessity is far weaker. But like Clinton, Trump helped his party regain power when many thought they couldn’t win, and the thought of soldiering on without him is too difficult to contemplate, even though his Vice President, JD Vance, would surely pursue similar policies. (Some Washington Republicans probably know better and would gladly toss Trump aside if not for the risk of offending MAGA voters and losing their seats to Trump-endorsed primary challengers.)
When past offensive social media posts by Platner first surfaced, including comments that blamed women for being sexually assaulted, he apologized and assured he had since matured: “I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am. I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today.” Given his combat tours, difficulty readjusting to civilian life, and his firm assurance that he had changed, many Democrats were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But after news was reported of extramarital sexting and of his active profile on a notorious messaging app that included a prurient photo, the case for newfound maturity buckled. Platner eschewed apologies and his defenders shifted tack. “I like that he’s messy” declared progressive commentator Matt Stoller, “The rule following perfect resume ladder climbing Harvard law grads are the … lizard people creeps.” Ken Klippenstein embraced Platner’s rise in his Substack newsletter, arguing that “people are done with the clean-cut types who’ve harbored ambitions for political office since they were on high school student council and have lived every waking moment accordingly. I call them smoothgroins: real-life Barbies with smooth plastic where a sexual organ should be.”
It’s not just online commentators, but also real, live Maine voters. Crooked Media’s Matt Berg posted on X a list of reactions from Platner supporters he interviewed in the Pine Tree State, including, “We aren’t electing a saint, we are electing someone who will speak loudly and incessantly about improving the lives of Mainers and all Americans,“ “I am not ready to give up on his candidacy, because he is a potential change agent,” and “His policies are great and he understands how power works. I don’t condone his sexting but I support his candidacy.”
What you’re hearing in these reactions is the belief that Platner is indispensable. Only he can take on the oligarchs, or the Democratic Party establishment, or the foreign policy establishment, or five-term incumbent Senator Susan Collins. He cannot be sacrificed and swapped out for another Democrat with a less checkered past because a Democrat with a buttoned-up personal life, pursuing a life in public service, should be considered less authentic and more suspect.
Just like how Clintonian moderates and Trumpian reactionaries myopically embraced the myth of indispensability, so are Platnerian progressive populists. Each group tacitly betrays a lack of confidence in the popularity of their ideological vision and has convinced themselves that only one or a select few charismatic rogues can successfully upend the status quo and enact the change they seek.
Whether or not Platner wins next week’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and November’s general election, the Democratic Party’s Senate caucus will span a left-to-center ideological spectrum, and where it stands on individual bills will continue to be litigated on a case-by-case basis. The ultimate success of progressive populism will rest more on the quality of their arguments to pass bills and, in turn, on the quality of the enacted policies over time.
Platner defenders may still believe their candidate has the best chance of defeating Senator Collins, and they have data points to back it up. Collins is losing to Platner in all polls to date. The other two choices on the primary ballot have run lackluster campaigns, and only one has an active campaign. It may be that Maine voters in general are willing to excuse Platner’s past behavior.
No one can know for sure, just as we can’t yet know whether Platner has committed more serious transgressions, whether he has changed past patterns of behavior, and whether, if elected, he would contribute to what has been a workplace culture in Washington that has been inhospitable to women. Every Maine voter will have to make their own judgment call based on incomplete information.
But what we all can say is that public officials should be people of good character. That includes people who make mistakes, take responsibility, and reform. It may not affect how they perform aspects of their jobs as legislators or chief executives. But it is relevant to the critical need to make our legislative chambers and executive offices truly safe for all people who want to serve their country and communities without being victimized.
