Deplatforming the “Irreplaceable” Man

He came out of nowhere. 

That’s what it seemed like to much of the country, but the rise of combat vet and oyster farmer Graham Platner seemed pretty sudden to a lot of Maine voters, too. 

A considerable portion of the electorate finds itself disenchanted with the Democratic establishment, opening the door for further-left candidates like Platner to get a foothold. He didn’t come up through the party ecosystem, but establishment Dems fell in line once former Governor Janet Mills dropped out of the Maine Senate race and Platner handily won the Democratic nomination. 

And his progressive policies looked delightfully compelling to liberal voters sick of all the tepid morass of mainstream Democratic centrism: universal healthcare, environmental protections, accountability targeting waste and corruption, billionaire taxation, election finance reform.  

But Platner’s rise outside of the system also means he wasn’t vetted the way your average Senate candidate might be. And the scandals started to break before he even clinched the nomination. Just as a refresher: 

• October 2025: Platner’s Reddit activity gets scrutinized. His charming posts include blaming rape victims for their assaults, praising Hamas tactics, criticizing Black Americans as bad tippers, and multiple uses of the R slur. Perhaps worst of all, his username was P-Hustle.
• October 2025 (again): Platner got a Nazi tattoo. Back in 2007. Apparently, that sort of thing is cool in the US military. While his campaign insisted that he didn’t realize its reichesque association until later, one ex-girlfriend insisted that he knew and joked about it. Regardless, he got the tattoo covered when the press made a big deal out of it, nearly two decades after receiving the ink.
• October 2025 (again again): At the end of the month, Platner saw an exodus of multiple key members of his campaign. Apparently, the Reddit and Nazi stuff was too much for them.
• May 2026: Platner got married in 2023. The honeymoon period did not last long. The story broke that Platner had a habit of sending sexually explicit texts to multiple women. Platner’s wife was already aware of the issue—in fact, the news leaked after she confided in a friend—and the couple were already addressing the issue in their marriage.
• June 2026: The New York Times spoke to a half-dozen of Platner’s ex-girlfriends. While some of them had nothing but good to say, others reported toxic issues of controlling and even violent behavior. Platner denied any physical abuse but pointed toward his issues with PTSD.

All of this, to be clear, came out before Platner won the primary to secure the nomination in June 2026. Voters stood by him, as did most Democratic establishment figures (at least once it became clear that nothing was going to slow his campaign’s momentum). 

So Platner became the nominee, the Democrats’ best chance at defeating long-sitting Senator Susan Collins and gaining an extra seat.

And it would be a bit silly to say something like And then the women spoke up, because, as you can see from the timeline above, women had spoken up. Multiple times. Platner was frank about his past struggles and demons, but there was no telling if there might be more skeletons in his closet. 

• July 2026: In painstaking detail, Jenny Racicot made her story known. She spoke of a toxic relationship that culminated in an incident in which Platner showed up drunk to her home against her expressed wishes and raped her.

Being as straightforward as possible, if you are an individual who prides themselves on believing women, I don’t think there’s any real choice except to believe Jenny Racicot. The evidence she has presented is compelling, with receipts going back to the time of the assault. 

And honestly? Is there anything in Platner’s history of behavior that casts reasonable doubt on Jenny’s account? The other shoe has dropped so many times that the owner must be shoe-wearing millipede. Who knows how many other scandals are as yet undisturbed? 

Each of the bombshells above resulted in a little flurry of people urging Platner to drop out. It wasn’t until the credible rape accusations that the chorus of voices grew to a cacophony he could not ignore. 

He denied the accusations but dropped out. Now Maine Dems have a brief window to determine who will represent them on the ballot in November. It’s difficult not be reminded of the 2024 election, in which a man who should not have been running waited until too late to step away, leaving voters without the opportunity to choose their candidate instead of having one hoisted upon them.

The next step in this saga is not determined yet. Whether the new nominee will have a good chance at defeating Collins and flipping the seat remains to be seen. 

And two things can be true at once: 

1. Platner may have been the best chance at flipping this seat. There was an infectious energy to his campaign, and it’s hard to minimize the importance of energizing the base, especially in an off-cycle election without any presidents on the ballot.
2. I do not want Graham Platner in the Senate. He has a long history of toxic behavior. He does not pass the test of basic decency that I want for my elected officials. 

The idea of a decency test brings to mind an essay that popular pastor and Christian author Max Lucado penned in early 2016 to explain why he refused to support Donald Trump. Lucado wrote: 

If a public personality calls on Christ one day and calls someone a “bimbo” the next, is something not awry? And to do so, not once, but repeatedly? Unrepentantly? Unapologetically? Can we not expect a tone that would set a good example for our children? We stand against bullying in schools. Shouldn’t we do the same in presidential politics?

We know how that one ended. Evangelical Christians supported Trump to an absurd degree. Mocking a disabled reporter didn’t change that. “Grab them by the pussy” didn’t change that. Over two dozen women coming forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault didn’t move the needle.

(At least one of those women—E. Jean Carroll—has finally seen some relief, as Trump has finally been forced to pay her the $5.625 million she was awarded by a jury for sexual assault and defamation in 2023.)

Is Graham Platner a decent human being? I’ve never met the man, but the evidence strongly suggests that he is not. 

But I would like to suggest a very firm line in the sand: If a man is credibly accused of sexual assault or rape, let us deplatform him.

I’m not a district attorney. I have no ability to lock up Trump or Platner. I understand that there are a lot of factors that contribute to whether a woman decides to press charges and whether or if she chooses to come forward. I’d be happy to see all these pieces of shit languishing in a jail cell, but I cannot bring this about.

But I contend that I have never met a man who is so extraordinary—so irreplaceable—that we as a society could not bear to survive without his contributions to the public square if he proves that he does not deserve the privilege. 

Far too many people stood by Platner even after the rape accusations surfaced. No. No, absolutely not. The man forfeits his claim to our consideration. 

They invariably point to Trump. Yes, we have a felon, an adjudicated rapist, in the White House. But adding another rapist to the Capitol does not make the situation better, and I honestly don’t give a fanciful fuck how much we see eye to eye on policy decisions. 

A lot of liberals don’t agree with me, not in 2026, but I desperately want to stand with Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high.” 

I can plug my nose and agree with California’s redistricting when what I believe in is national anti-gerrymandering legislation that the GOP refuses to vote for. But platforming and endorsing a rapist for the sake of possibly winning a single Senate seat is a road too far.

So I cheer Graham Platner’s removal from our national political discourse. Not because I’m opposed to redemption stories. I truly hope he gets help and spends his life doing better than he did the day before. 

But I’m very comfortable in my position that if you sexually assault a woman, you don’t get to come back from that—not in the public eye. Go work at a Home Depot or something. There is nothing special enough about you that means we can’t do without you as a Senator, Supreme Court Justice, President, leading actor, stand-up comedian, YouTuber, or musician. 

I shall content myself with non-rapists. One must have standards.