The Politico reporting is extremely damning, and these accusations really can’t be described as anything other than rape. He’s gotta go.
The first wave of allegations were not bad, this one is bad. I hope Maine can get something going other than Janet Mills. They deserve better than both Mills and Platner
Funny how the “blue no matter who” and “vote for the options you have not the ones you wish you had” arguments just seem to have poofed out of existence.
Oh no, there are many people here shouting down everyone about how we have to vote for a rapist.
Well he has for sure guaranteed himself a presidential run.
They might fire Mike Johnson
This guy has seemed fishy to me since the beginning, but one has to wonder - how is it possible that Democrats didn’t do background check on their candidate? Or they did and let this happen to hurt the left?
Too many red flags floating above his head, too many coincidences, that I find it hard to believe nobody knew about this.
Could be wrong obviously, but this is quite a bad look for Dems and especially progressive wing
Generally, I’m a believer in evidence over allegations, and the timing is very suspicious, but if there are actual documented conversations alluding to this behavior from years then it’s a bad look. I think Politico ought to come forward with more of the evidence so that voters can get a full picture of what was said about him and the timeline of events and statements.
But great news for Susan Collins and Donald Trump either way.
Someone running for Senate seems a really good time to come out to me.
If they were trying to time it, why would they give them enough time to run someone else
The idea is that if it is timed, that the goal is to maximize damage. Democrats have until July 13th to run someone else according to Maine law as I understand it. If they do run someone else, that person is now at a massive disadvantage and Collins is more likely to prevail, if Platner refuses to drop out, the fact that he could have given way to a new candidate becomes extra damaging. Maybe he’s still able to beat Collins, but this might deactivate though voters to hand it to her if he stays in too.
That’s what’s making some people think it’s either a Republican plant or a Democratic ratfuck. Since both are servants of capital and even the Democrats would rather Collins win than have someone even claiming to be anti-Israel win.
I guess a mercenary is a mercenary.
Racicot told the outlet she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner for more than two years. She alleges that in late 2021, an intoxicated Platner entered her home uninvited and forced himself on her. Racicot said she terminated contact after the encounter.
The report cited accounts from a man Racicot later confided in, as well as therapist emails and messages where she warned an acquaintance about Platner years before his Senate run.
It does appear there’s damning evidence.
Platner only has himself to blame for this.
But great news for Susan Collins and Donald Trump either way.
Yep, they’ve pulled off a coup here.
Is it really that hard to refrain from SAing someone? Or at bare minimum, not running for office if you have? The audacity of these candidates is mind-blowing.
It’s really really infuriating that it seems to be an almost universal law that if someone is running for office they are exactly the wrong kind of person and should never be allowed to hold office.
Douglas Adams puts it in a more humorous way:
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Yeah it’s frustrating as fuck.
At the same time, there were so many massive red flags. And I was excoriated here for mentioning them.
I think the disturbing reality is just that rape and SA is much more common than people think it is
Charismatic people are good at running for office and good at avoiding responsibility for things throughout their lives. We select for a trait that let’s people get away with stuff.
It’s a perfect example of the type of rape culture we have in the US.
When we take into account the fact that 1 in 4 women in the US have been sexually assaulted and 1 in every 6 women have been raped, then yes, it really appears to be hard to refrain from sexually assaulting people.
It would’ve been great if we hadn’t rug swept this guy’s past so hard.
0.0
Is it really that hard to refrain from [sexually assaulting] someone?
Yes.
Is it easy to accuse someone? Yes. Does that mean the person did it? No. Does it mean they didn’t? No.
Here I thought not SAing was easy. Huh?
Republican campaigning 101, if there isn’t a scandal, make one.
Not surprised.
While I’m all for believing victims, this needs to be investigated from both sides. If he’s guilty, jail him. if he’s not, jail her.
This does need investigation but the time it will take for it will be too much for the left and just like before the only people who will be hurt will the common people.
Details look fake. She deleted any real evidence and very obviously timed the release. Legitimate victim wouldn’t have waited this long specifically. Like this was timed by a polysci type
There is a plausibility to the timing. This is kind of the “last off ramp” so to speak for another candidate to potentially be chosen and actually replace him on the ballot. So her talking about struggling with supporting him politically but not personally could be true. This would be the “It’s now, or never” time if her story is true and the reason it’s coming so late is that she struggled with whether or not to share it because she didn’t want to potentially hand the race to Collins.
I hadn’t heard about anything being deleted though, what’s that about? That didn’t show up in any of the stuff I’ve seen about this. That’s pretty suspicious if true. Since it points to a possibility that the things deleted might have painted a different picture than the one being told now. Which yeah taken with the timing would make it seem more like a planned political sabotage than a legitimate survivor story if true.
Only if it worked both ways… Meanwhile, a convicted rapist sits in oval.
Yeah…that’s because democrats have spent their lives trying to play fair…
The FIRST time Republicans Accusing Platner of SEXUAL ASSAULT I said NO THANK YOU he’s STILL my guy but now that Republicans are doing the EXACT SAME THING again I guess I have NO CHOICE but to Vote for Collins!
This woman isn’t a Republican.
Not Good
Not Good and Entirely Predictable.
You had no credible evidence until this point except “he was a chud in the past and I have bad vibes”
Newsflash, you’re not an oracle. Now that there’s credible accusations, he’s out. As it should be. You don’t get to be a wrecker on vibes, that’s how we end up with the Chuck Schumers and Susan Collins’ of the world.
The real question is now who is going to step up in his place with the same platform? Because the policies are clearly what we all wanted and needed, which is why he attracted attention nationwide.
This is the guy that had a Nazi tattoo on his chest for twenty years?
I stg I thought I was going nuts, seems lots of ppl were desparate for anyone that has a crumb of charisma and reformist positions to the point of glossing over those tattoos and his private merc past. No one was arguing really for his arrest or anything, just whether THIS was the best we could do. And now this… I just am not surprised.
I mean I’d vote for him over Collins but that’s because the bar is in hell and unless we’re aiming for societal collapse keeping republicans out of office no matter what is an existential priority. But goddamn is it an indictment on US American culture and society. We are for the most part not good people.
So he IS a republican plant after all.
Who we voting for? Janet Mills?
Are we going to vote for a rapist after all of the yelling about Trump?
It’s not too late for him to drop out of the race and be replaced, most likely by Janet Mills. Internal pressure appears to be necessary. Ceding the election to Susan Collins is not a great option. She’ll keep doing what she has been doing.
I hope he has the grace to drop out.
I hope you have the grace to not judge him until all the facts are in.
Not judging, just don’t wish for a repeat of 2024. Joe Biden prolonging the campaign and bowing too late.
The facts like his contract mercenary work in Afghanistan, his Nazi tattoo, and his other accusations of sexual assault and rape?
Yeah. I’ll wait for more of the facts to come in. /s
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This is disgusting.
Not a Mainer (and I bet you aren’t either) but I would vote for the policy, not the person.
And that’s how we have a child rapist as president.
The end justifies the means, right?
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The pre-incumbency personal life:
- Got a Nazi tattoo
- Served with war criminals
- Rapist
That’s your candidate. That’s the guy you want to make one of the 100 most powerful people in the country.
You’re out here calling other people ‘numbnuts’, the fucking gall.
You’ve convinced me. I’m shilling for Susan Collins 100% now. I see now that it was my nuts that were numb the whole time.
This account is henceforth Pro Trump
#MAGA WWG1WGA
At least you’re consistent about supporting rapists.
Damn, the war crime nazi was a rapist?
So I don’t get all the mechanics of how US politics work but I don’t understand how people can see this happening and still think the party who selected him as their candidate cares about winning the election.
Don’t come at me about presumption of innocence or accusing me of demanding perfection. I don’t care about this man and what he’s done. I’m shocked that the party who puts respectability above all else didn’t drop him like hot potatoes after the first scandal.
Because most of the scandals have been bullshit. The Nazi tattoo theory didn’t make sense and the other sexual abuse story came from someone whose literal job is promoting Republicans. And it’s been clear he’s getting an avalanche of opposition funding from the rich. This is the first one that smells legit, but the timing is kind of suspicious.
But more importantly, the “party” didn’t select him. They want moderate insiders with 30 years of vetting and personal relationships with donors. The voters want outsiders who are willing to try to change things.
What theory? He had an explicit totenkopf which is an exclusively capital N Nazi symbol tattood on his chest for eighteen years. There’s no theory, it was a totenkopf and he didn’t cover it up till he entered politics.
The Nazi tattoo theory didn’t make sense
I’m sorry, “theory”?
And what exactly didn’t make sense about it?
Maybe what I need to understand the desire for respectability has been replaced with the desire to “stick it to the man”.
I can’t wait for people to accuse those who withdraw support as being duped or being traitors. Believe women except when we don’t 🤷♀️
But more importantly, the “party” didn’t select him. They want moderate insiders with 30 years of vetting and personal relationships with donors. The voters want outsiders who are willing to try to change things.
What am I missing? I see senators are mostly D or R. Do the parties not put forth candidates? Do people just get to declare themselves candidates aligned with the party?
People run in a primary election within each party to decide who the nominee will be. Anyone can run in these elections (subject to some state by state requirements). They aren’t selected by party functionaries or elected officials.
So like once they win the primary they can’t be kicked out for that election (and if successful, term)?
That’s wild.
I think so. The actual rules may vary state to state. But even if it were possible in some state for a party to override a vote it would be an incredibly destructive act. They’d probably lose that election and invite a wholesale fracturing.
This isn’t a multi party democracy where if your usual party presents an option you don’t like you can just swap to another one with similar policies who might join with them in a parliament for majority building. If the Democrats outright ignore their voters there’s likely no other viable option.
Even in parliamentary systems I’m really surprised people tolerate party insiders choosing the candidates. Seems like a good system for political insiders to just define what the range of tolerable politics is with little input from voters. But then again, our system has gotten us to this hellhole, so direct voter participation isn’t a reliable protection from political insiders and stagnancy.
Why have parties if you can’t control who can say they belong to it?
Organizing a first past the post democracy. If you don’t organize with a primary then you risk having multiple originally similar candidates in a general election and losing to the more unified bloc. The control on who can run under the party’s banner is done by the primary voters. Someone who doesn’t act like a Democrat could try to run, but they’d just lose.
If it turned out that this is verifiably a false accusation, I wouldn’t call you a traitor, but I would point out that this is why we have a system in place that provides the presumption of innocence. Further, Platner has been falsely accused previously, so there’s precedent for not believing every accusation. Unfortunately, it appears this one may have legit supporting evidence.
What makes this so hard for me to conceive isn’t about the credibility of the accusations. This might be my boomer moment but I remember when even a whiff of scandal meant you were gone. How was the social media stuff unknown? Aren’t these things looked at before people are endorsed? If a candidate failed to disclose social media accounts and then something came out, how are they not dropped for lying?
I mean, this guy isn’t an incumbent. A sitting MPP got kicked out of her racist ass party after having a meeting with Tommy Robinson. It was a secure seat (and the party kept it with a new MPP in the next election).
It feels like the bar has shifted so far from “be squeaky clean” to “as long as you can introduce reasonable doubt”.
Al Franken is a prime reason why you don’t ostracize someone on allegations alone.
I don’t know who that is but Trump hadn’t been found guilty in criminal court right? Except for falsifying records?
How do people say Trump is a sex criminal but that other accused people deserve the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? It implies that only victims of the opponent are to be believed. Which implies that only some people deserve to be believed, as a function of how useful that accusation is.
If the response to this is “it’s obvious Trump is guilty”, yeah no shit but if a fair trial is required before we hold the accused accountable, why is Trump’s criminality constantly being referenced by politicians as proof of his untrustworthiness?
Trump has been found by a court to have raped women. Not criminal court but he is an adjudicated rapist.
He’s kind of been found to be a rapist in a court of law. Trump sued a woman for defamation over a rape claim and the jury listened to testimony and evidence and found that he had forcibly penetrated her. So not criminal trial, but there was a trial and a determination by a jury.
After a nine-day trial, the jury deliberated for under three hours before returning a verdict on May 9, 2023. They found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her. The jury did not find that Carroll had proven “rape” as defined under the New York Penal Law, which requires penile penetration. The total award was $5 million: $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse, $2.7 million in compensatory damages for defamation, and $280,000 in punitive damages for defamation.
Judge Kaplan later clarified what the “not rape” finding actually meant. In denying Trump’s motion for a new trial, Kaplan wrote that the jury had “implicitly found that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers” — conduct that most people would understand as rape, even though it fell outside the narrow New York criminal statute requiring penile penetration.
https://legalclarity.org/trump-rape-lawsuit-e-jean-carrolls-trials-and-verdicts/
You seem to be taken in by the idea that all unproven claims should be treated equally until tried in a court of law. But it’s totally ok to judge people on your own based on their personality, history, and the circumstances of the accusation. We’re not deciding whether they’ll spend their lives in prison, we’re judging their character for an elected position. Trump isn’t just one accusation from Carroll, he’s his whole life of womanizing and misogyny and proudly violating boundaries of young women. He’s outright bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. Sometimes you just have to make an educated guess and be willing to be wrong.
The first scandal was basically that he’s a CHUD dumbass and an edge lord when he was younger… But who cares? That much was obvious, and his platform is on point. The media just presented it as more than it was, because the billionaires own the media and are terrified of progressives
This is the first serious scandal. Unfortunately it’s too late to replace him, and supposedly there’s something much worse that hasn’t been released yet…a depressing day of news all around
Anyone capable of having a totenkopf on their chest for 18 years deserves to have their judgement questioned. I understand most US Americans don’t give a shit about capital N Nazi stuff these days but it is a pretty big deal.
I think I did a better job explaining myself here: https://crazypeople.online/comment/9769316
But also hold on
his platform is on point.
Do individuals have platforms? They don’t follow the platform of the party they belong to? If that’s true why are they parties and why are there only two parties who are pitted against each other? Doesn’t it just become about winning or losing and not about collectively administering a government and improving things for citizens?
Do individuals have platforms?
Yes? Of course they do. It’s a collection of beliefs, goals, and promised actions presented when you’re rallying support from the people
Our government has certainly been chosen by a teams sports mentality, but that’s absolutely not the norm. They used to have long public debates and publish essays… What we’re going through is a heavily degraded democracy, none of this is normal
Saying things like rape victims were asking for it doesn’t seem so CHUD dumbass now.
Seems like those red flag comments were revealing true thoughts on Platner’s part. But no, wouldn’t want to purity test.
I’ll probably be downvoted for this—and it is pretty provocative to be fair—but I’d rather have a (potential) rapist than a liberal. Now being a rapist is a pretty handy indicator that someone is a piece of shit, but so is pushing to support Israel.
PS: I’m comparing with Janet Mills here because obviously letting Susan Collins win is out of the question.
I’ll probably be downvoted for this—and it is pretty provocative to be fair—but I’d rather have a (potential) rapist than a liberal
So basically you don’t want to win, right? It’s much more important to ‘own the libs’ than to win and govern? Progressive rapist will never win.
How about progressives start vetting their candidates first before handing them their full support?
How about progressives start vetting their candidates first before handing them their full support?
Yeah Maine progressives should’ve just read his mind to know about this (still not substantiated) accusation that makes perfect sense.
That aside, even if the accusations are true he could probably win by just denying them, and that’d still be better than Janet Mills getting the job.
It’s not like there weren’t warning signs about the kind of man Platner is before this. Don’t pretend he was the perfect candidate and we had no idea he wrote comments like “rape victims were asking for it”. We knew.
I mean I disagree, but also that has nothing to do with what I said?
We didn’t need to read his mind. We already had his comments and his past actions.
but I’d rather have a (potential) rapist than a liberal.
That’s what we have in the presidency right now.
We should be real careful about what we’re willing to accept in order to gain power.
I mean Trump wasn’t just accused; it was 100% established fact that he was a rapist, and either way it’s not like he ever pretended to be anything he’s not. Or well he did do some superficial pretending, but he never really tried to hide the core shittiness of his personality if that makes sense.
We should be real careful about what we’re willing to accept in order to gain power.
Fair point, and this would be a pretty good reason to stop batting for him publicly (though I’d wait for the accusations to be somehow substantiated first). But that doesn’t preclude voting for him on election day, because he’s still the best of the viable options.
Do you think it’s better or worse that Platner and the people around him tried to hide his rapist past?
Just out of curiosity, (and it is, I’ve stopped being pro Planter explicitly since the Nazi tattoo, though not anti-Platner.) Is the rape allegation more or less disqualifying than the explicitly accepted enlistment goal being to personally murder brown people?
I had my misgivings about this guy from the start. The mercenary stint was really unsettling.
There was a lot of pushback and a lot of accusations of purity testing. I stopped talking about it because what’s the point? Everyone was saying his social media comments about rape victims asking for it and his tattoo and his military background were in his past and we have to allow people to grow.
I’ve never liked him as a candidate and I’ve been disappointed by the support those on the left have shown him.
I’d rather have a democrat win against Collins and then when those accusations have more evidence he resigns.
