The Democrats' Platner Problem

After All Their Pontificating, Dems Chose the Worst Candidate to Go After an Old Lady

Is he the antidote to James Talarico?

Dem damn Dems possess a particular “talent” only Republicans can envy, which is the ability to sabotage themselves while claiming a moral high ground. They can’t seem to quit it. Recent case in point: turning a blind eye to Joe Biden’s mental acuity and shoving Kamala Harris down our throats. Democracy? I don’t think so.

Since I can remember — which is a hell of a long time — sanctimonious Democrats have lectured Americans about how much character matters. Words matter. Accountability matters. And judging by their constant virtue-signaling and political posturing, clearly the planet matters, which also means matter matters.

We’ve been scolded into submission: elections must be about character, not just policy, and who a candidate is as a person matters more than what they promise to do. The Dems spew value judgments at GOP opposition candidates like peanuts to a monkey in a cage at the zoo. They polish their own pristine candidates and gloat about who and what they are as “a people.”

Are you cringing yet?

Then along comes Graham Platner.

Suddenly everything gets complicated.

Suddenly, nothing matters anymore — in keeping with Democrats’ ability to throw a curveball by showing a shiny new toy, in this case the cost of the Iran War, a deflection from the Maine Senate election.

The tattoo controversy? Context. The online comments? Growth. The allegations? Nuance. The explanations for the explanations? They don’t “owe” us one.

SIDEBAR: I am not going to go into a tirade about the Nazi tattoo issue. By now you know how I feel about it and antisemites who have taken over the party. I want to be clear that my Zionist views are not clouding my argument against Platner — because if you are not going to believe all women after they created the #MeToo movement, then you are hopeless as a party. Which I am very glad to have left after Kamala’s embarrassing loss — the one woman no one believed could run this country.

What makes Platner’s rise so infuriating isn’t whether you personally believe he’s innocent, guilty, misunderstood, unfairly attacked, or some combination of all four. The real story is what his candidacy reveals about the true fecklessness of the Democratic Party itself.

Because Democrats have spent years constructing a political identity built around standards and taking the moral high ground. Entire careers have been built up and torn down enforcing those standards.

Who do you think started the political correctness cancer that plagues the world and created the woke ideology that has now — poetically — come back to bite them in the ass?

Yet the moment a candidate arrives who appears politically useful, all their PC nonsense becomes negotiable, if not irrelevant. It’s about winning über alles? No pun intended related to the newly embraced Nazi tattoo.

And their true colors are revealed and we can all see how horny they are for a win.

The problem for Democrats isn’t Graham Platner. The problem is the argument they’re forced to make on his behalf. Every day spent explaining his past is a day not spent talking about healthcare, housing, wages, inflation, or anything else voters actually care about — which we will see is not what the party cares about at all. Dems have no platform besides Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS!

Republicans won’t even have to write attack ads. Most of the material already exists.

What’s inexcusable is how closely this resembles the behavior Democrats consistently condemn. For years they criticized and rallied — literally — against Republicans for overlooking character flaws because a candidate was useful. They mocked MAGA and twisted themselves into knots explaining away conduct they would never tolerate — until they needed to.

Now they’re guilty of the same crap and can’t unpaint themselves out of the Maine corner. They are guilty by association and for being pathetic.

They say Platner is authentic, rough around the edges, not a polished consultant-created politician. He has machismo, exactly what the democratic party needs now.

I mean…how many James Talaricos can there be in one election cycle? Talk about polar extremes. Diversity at its epic core. I’d love to see those two bear hug at the next democrat convention.

There’s a contingent of the left that has become genuinely seduced by the macho-outsider archetype. This is, frankly, a mirror image of the logic that animated the MAGA movement.

I guess if you can’t beat ‘em… join ‘em? Just hold your nose and vote. Is that it? What’s next — a gaggle of looksmaxxing Dems?

For years, Democrats argued they offered something different. More inclusive. More principled. More hot air, if you ask me. Once you leave the party, the fog lifts.

Platner’s candidacy raises an uncomfortable possibility: the party no longer believes its ideology is enough to win.

Maybe they’ve concluded that voters don’t want principles. They want dick? I can’t.

If that’s true, Democrats are facing a crisis much larger than one Senate race. Because once a party begins selectively applying its values, those values stop having meaning.

Democrats keep telling voters to believe they are the party of ethics, inclusion, and character. Nominating Graham Platner as your chosen hero is kinda like an oxymoron.

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