Since he came down the escalator 11 years ago, Donald Trump’s personal conduct made him uniquely unfit for office and Americans had a moral obligation to oppose him, so said Democrats. Character mattered in politics, they told us.
But on Tuesday, nearly 150,000 Mainers sent a different message. Democrats handed Graham Platner a landslide primary victory, a decisive win for the man who had a Nazi tattoo. And to be clear, Platner wasn’t the only candidate on the ballot. Incumbent Gov. Janet Mills and former Democrat Senate nominee in 2024 David Costello were on the ballot as well. And yet it was a landslide victory for Platner.
Platner spent 18 years bearing a Nazi tattoo and only had it removed when it became ever so slightly (emphasis on slightly) politically inconvenient. He also said women worried about rape should not “get blacked out, f*cked up around people” they aren’t “comfortable” with. He also allegedly said that if someone ever broke into his home, he would “rape them … [but] not in a sexual way, not in a gay way.”
The Nazi tattoo alone would have been career suicide if it belonged to a Republican candidate, let alone all the additional scandals surrounding Platner. And yet the same people and party that spent years insisting that Trump’s personal behavior (which really isn’t comparable to a literal Nazi) made him uniquely disqualified from holding office just elected Platner to be their nominee.
If character were truly the defining issue as we’ve been told for a decade, why didn’t the standard apply here?
The answer is obvious if you just look at some of the very same Democrats who spent years lecturing Americans abut decency standards.
In 2017, Sen. Bernie Sanders suggested it was “absurd” that Trump had not offered his resignation over the Access Hollywood tape. The message was that certain conduct disqualifies someone from holding office. Yet Sanders has been one of Platner’s most outspoken supporters, saying, “There are no saints in the United States Senate.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called Trump a “bully” who “attack[s] women” and is indecent — something “decent people everywhere” should say “No more” to. Despite Platner’s excusing of rape and alleged sexual and physical abuse of women, Warren has thrown her support behind Platner.
For years, Democrats asked voters to consider moral fitness above political party, Warren herself implored Republicans to prioritize decency over politics. And yet when faced with a candidate on their own side with baggage that would — and should — disqualify any Republican, those same people who lectured us on “decency” are now defending the indecent and indefensible because the truth is, Democrats’ don’t prioritize character, they prioritize winning. Democrats never actually had a problem with Trump’s moral hiccups, they just had a problem that he was beating them. It’s the inverse reason why they have no problem with Platner: if he can give the party an extra vote, that’s all that matters.
Heck, at this point I’m convinced Democrats would elect Hitler himself if it meant gaining an extra Senate seat.
