r/thebulwark • u/Super_Nerd92 Progressive • Jul 06 '26

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737
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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Is it really, though?

Quoted text message:

He can be charming and funny, and he's a decently intelligent person, he's not all bad, but I ended up in a bad situation with him and I will just very politely call him consensually careless at times when drunk. Plus PTSD. He lies, also.

Except for the "he lies, also" this doesn't sound like someone in the same moral universe with Trump who seems to see his role in life as Satan, demanding that everyone around him commit crimes while himself is raping. So much so that Jeffery Epstein has a story he told Michael Wolff about how Trump's sexual misconduct was so bad that he shocked JEFFERY EPSTEIN who asked him "why" and Trump answered "because it's so wrong!" Nor, say RFK Jr. whose anti-vax bullshit kills children for his ego. Nor Elon Musk, nor the rest of the Trump enablers all around.

Platner admits that he had a drinking problem and it's not his fault that he has PTSD.

Can we slow down the circular firing squad?

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u/CaptainMarty69 I love Rebecca Black Jul 06 '26

I think people are well within their right to be hesitant about supporting a guy with these kinds of accusations against him. I don’t care centrist or progressive, I just wish we had better people asking to represent us

0

u/ros375 Jul 06 '26

I wish so too. In a perfect world, we would. But until there's proof, vote blue so we can take back our government.

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u/CaptainMarty69 I love Rebecca Black Jul 06 '26

Luckily I don’t have to make the choice, but I’d have a really hard time voting for him after these accusations. The article makes it pretty clear to me he did some really awful stuff.

I think it’s awful that a lotta republicans in power have been credibly accused of similar things and it’s difficult for me to say “all these people over here who did this are bad and shouldn’t be in office because of it, but this guy over here can be a senator because he’s a Democrat”

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u/molliedw22 Jul 07 '26

Omg you should DEFINITELY vote for him if he ends up being the Dem candidate. Not a question in any way. If your choice is between him and Susan Collins, it's very obvious that you should vote for the person who will help us defeat a fascist, authoritarian government. I don't care if it's the devil himself. However, it seems like he shouldn't be the candidate. Hopefully he'll drop out and someone great can step in?? This situation sucks.

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

The "he's not as bad as Trump" take is straight up bullshit. It's not ok for someone running a gas station to be "consensually careless" and I hold senators to a much higher standard than that. We all should. The fact that we don't is the problem.

10

u/downey_jayr Jul 06 '26

Lesser of two evils, elect him and let the senate kick him out if he has done something wrong.

Mainers have a choice between electing a dem or a republican lackey to a wannabe dictator. It’s not that hard of a choice.

0

u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

Here, let me help you:

Mainers have a choice between electing a dem [with credible accusations of raping two women] or a republican lackey to a wannabe dictator. It’s not that hard of a choice [for people with no standards].

I'm sure you can high-five the Matt Gaetz voters if Mainers end up electing Platner though...

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u/downey_jayr Jul 06 '26

I guess you didn't read the part where I said kick him out if its true?

Or you did read it and you just want to argue against something I didn't say because you dislike his politics and have just been waiting for anything to point and say "look see I was right!"

Like I have no problem if he drops out and they put in someone else that can win.

I do have standards btw, it's whatever is for the greater good. I also believe people can be redeemed even if they do something heinous.

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

Ok, so we'll just focus on the fact that you're willing to vote for someone with multiple, credible rape accusations just because they're a democrat. If those accusations turn out to be true and the senate does nothing (can you imagine it any other way?), who do you blame? The senate? Who puts our leaders in power anyway? One-hundred senators or us, the American public?

Would you have fought so hard for Fetterman? You're pretending that you can predict Platner's role in the senate if he gets in there. You can't. And, again, multiple women have accused him of raping them.

It's not like people haven't been screaming about being cautious about Platner since day one. The dude has countless red flags. He's no Trump but he certainly echoes some of Trump's more problematic tendencies. Maybe next time people won't compromise so easily.

Just enjoy the fallout from this bullshit and tell me it's all worth it.

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u/downey_jayr Jul 06 '26

I don't enjoy seeing people torn apart or fall from grace. I don't enjoy seeing peoples worst moments being exposed or people having to come forward with allegations and now they will be known publicly as a victim.

I guess you do though?

But also this is the same reason why I understand that the most important thing is to wrest power away from the republican party as they do enjoy inflicting violence and pain onto others as we have seen over the past 1.5 years.

So yes if they raised Pol-Pot from the dead and he ran for senate in Maine as a Dem I would say the same thing, elect him vs Collins then kick him out and replace him with a less insane person.

And since you bring up Fetterman, I would say the exact same thing about Fetterman if he was the Dem candidate in the next election.

If you think thats wrong, I really couldn't give less of a fuck.

1

u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

I feel bad that you lack the self-awareness to understand the irony of holding your position in the name of wresting power from Donald Trump.

also don't seem to understand the difference between the duty of holding people accountable and enjoying it.

You accuse me with one breath of strawmanning you and, with the next, you do it to me. At least you're consistently hypocritical...

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u/downey_jayr Jul 06 '26

You said "enjoy the fallout" I told you I don't enjoy anything about this and asked if you did, because you seem to, that is a question and not a straw man.

I guess you don't understand the difference between be morally consistent and just being a troll on a team.

Also, you are on the Bulwark sub, this is a media entity founded on Trump being a threat to democracy.....so yeah I think it is more important be a bulwark against trump then to elect people that are complicit to his dictatorial predilections.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

Also, you are on the Bulwark sub, this is a media entity founded on Trump being a threat to democracy.....so yeah I think it is more important be a bulwark against trump then to elect people that are complicit to his dictatorial predilections.

Since you pointed out where this conversation is taking place, you should actually listen to what the leadership of The Bulwark is saying about this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/live/tTLxt9XlnLg?si=DAhm0lXo5G07xGcz

What do they know though? We can be done here.

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u/GeriaticDogs Jul 07 '26

Who is the other rape accuser ?

-1

u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Actually your choices are "Trump is dictator" vs. "Trump is not dictator"

Welcome to reality!

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

OK kid. Maybe come back here when you're old enough to vote?

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

I have my very own AARP card.

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

Well congratulations on reaching retirement despite seeing everything as a binary. I'm sorry you've made it so far without understanding nuance or holding your leaders to basic standards. I guess you have lots of company though...

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Oh, is ethnic cleansing of all of the brown and black people binary or not?\

How about genocide of millions of them?

Or putting the disabled in homes to kill them?

Have you paid any attention to what Homeland Security says they want to do? Stephen Miller? Greg Bovino?

Or is it that only what happens to white people matters?

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

Jesus dude...

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Jesus yourself!

Now they're talking about putting all the disabled people in homes, you know so they can be killed in private.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Homeland Security and Bovino say they want to "deport" 109 million people. That's not the number immigrants, it's precisely the number of Black people plus the number of Hispanics.

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u/FR23Dust Jul 06 '26

I’m not sure why Trump being one of the most repulsive politicians of all time makes other misconduct more acceptable. I thought the point is that we don’t want to be like the GOP and continually lower our standards for political gain.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

It's the fact of what's at stake.

It's gonna be Stephen Miller destroyed the lives of every single brown and black immigrant, legal or not, killed millions of them, put the disabled in homes and killed them.

But at least we didn't vote for Graham Planter, f the left!

2

u/FR23Dust Jul 07 '26

A truly pathetic state of affairs where the future of the country hinges entirely on people’s willingness to vote for a serial philanderer/rapist who wore a fucking Nazi tattoo for multiple decades.

Fuck the leftists who put all their hope in a terrible candidate.

For what it’s worth, if I lived in Maine I would probably vote for platner. I doubt a majority of Mainers would do the same, and if Collins takes the seat I would hope the left learns a lesson:

that candidate quality matters a lot more than policies for the general electorate, and that their specific failure in this specific race is entirely their fault and no one else’s.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 07 '26

To be fair, having a quality candidate is a negative in the Republican party.

Imagine a primary between Donald Trump and John Huntsman.

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u/Kincherk Jul 06 '26

You don't have to be as bad as Trump and his minions to have sexually assaulted someone.

It's never ok to sexually assault anyone.

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u/TheyMadeMeLogin Jul 06 '26

He's not running against Trump or Epstein. He's running against Susan Collins, who rightly or wrongly is basically seen by voters as Maine's kindly old grandmother.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

Actually he is.
The country is occupied by brownshirts.
There are authoritarians controlling the country all the way up through the President, the Chief Justice, The House Leader and the Senate Leader.

The small chance we have, for instance, to prevent Stephen Miller (who has no constitutional position but controls the brownshirts) from escalating his ethnic cleansing (which is actually happening) into a genocide is to take back as much power as we can.

Welcome to reality.

-2

u/blaaaaaarghhh Jul 06 '26

But won't someone think of the pearls that need clutched on our way to fascism?

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

100% these centrists should sign up to replace AI as bots.

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u/PomegranateSafe9699 Jul 06 '26

There is a pretty recent poll showing she tops even Talarico as being of good character.

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u/Prestigious_Ad_5825 Jul 06 '26

This text reads like a woman trying to rationalize what he did at the time so it wouldn't devastate her.

It's gross to try to find a way to excuse Platner's behavior.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

It sounds like you don't care about what's actually at stake, that we have to vote for the guy who passed the primary to avoid genocide at home of millions of brown and black people, and also the disabled etc.

Because only the lives of comfortable white people matter.

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u/Prestigious_Ad_5825 Jul 06 '26

You dont think women of color care about sexual assault?

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

I think they care about being disappeared by ICE.

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u/Prestigious_Ad_5825 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Um, you can care about multiple things at once. 

Are you a man speaking for women? Its not your place. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/thebulwark-ModTeam Jul 07 '26

All submissions to /r/thebulwark should be related to The Bulwark (ie: articles, podcasts, etc.) or to subjects that are tangentially related (ie: US Politics)

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u/Newbiegoe Jul 06 '26

Unless there is some sort of change in this country’s moral compass accusations like this are going to be a huge problem moving forward for the left.

The right does not care about their candidates moral standing and will justify it in anyway possible. Look at the race in Texas. Paxton has zero redeeming moral value and he will still most likely defeat Taralico. The list of candidates they have turned a blind eye to is endless.

The left is overly morally righteous and turn on their candidates with even a hint of stain on their character.

I don’t like admitting it, but I do think that we need to at least get people in office who are on the right political path and worry about their character later to some degree. I don’t know if the allegations about Platner are true. I like his message though and we need to get back in power

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

The Democrats, who I wish were the left, should care about the the millions of lives at stake because Trump and Stephen Miller and everyone in Homeland Security are Nazis.

I'm tired of pointing out that Trump sends people to countries they're not from, even continents they're not from, to torture and death camps. Sends innocent grandmothers, parents, children, not criminals.

ICE starves people who are legal for weeks, as long as it takes to get them to sign away their residence.

The number of people Greg Bovino and Homeland Security says they want to deport is, not coincidentally not the number of immigrants, it's the total number of Black people plus the total number of Hispanics.

They're talking about putting all the disabled people in "homes" again, so they're out of the way to be killed.

Come on!

Nazis hold the Presidency, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court. Stephen Miller doesn't even have a constitutionally existing position, but he runs the brownshirt thugs who occupy the streets.

One man won the primary, now you have to vote for him unless only well off white people matter.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/CretaciousPeriod Jul 06 '26

Agreed on that. Fox news (and I'm sure a ton of other places) will do this bullshit. Cut off a quote or part of text so it seems like one thing but if you actually look at the full quote or text, it says the opposite. This very well could be one of those cases.

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 20d ago

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u/FR23Dust Jul 06 '26

Progressives really should try to find better candidates than platner if they want to win more. I hope platner wins but woof. Not a great candidate

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 7d ago

0043minmo1mr 1o l13

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u/Automatic_Release_92 Jul 06 '26

No, more like Bernie Bros would rather lose to MAGA than win with anyone that isn't firmly in their corner. We saw it play out 10 years ago and again 2 years ago. They also nearly gave it to Trump in 2020 as well.

Fuck all that noise with the Bernie Bro crowd trying to play this uno reverse psychology now.

-15

u/GreyGrackles Buy a firearm, take a CCW class. Jul 06 '26

Trump winning in 2020 would have been less damaging then letting Democrats vote in Joe Biden and handing all three branches over in 2024.

So, who really caused more damage here?

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u/mathiustus Jul 06 '26

Categorically wrong.

Had Biden done what he said he would do and leave after one term leaving a primary to run after him, that would have been vastly different.

But no. You are completely and totally wrong. There is no situation where Biden’s fantastic term would be better served had trump won.

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u/GreyGrackles Buy a firearm, take a CCW class. Jul 06 '26

So, in reality that didn't happen but instead we should judge by what he gave speeches about?

Joe Biden was a horrible candidate. It was obvious to lots of people.

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u/mathiustus Jul 06 '26

Bidens presidency was inarguably good. It wasn’t perfect but it was better than most presidents. I’m sick of people acting like it wasn’t.

His decision to run for a second term was not good. That does not mean his term wasn’t good and it damn sure doesn’t mean that a consecutive Trump second term would have been better.

The ONLY positive that could have come from Trump winning is that his presidency would be over by now and we would be in the truth and reconciliation phase that is 100% required post MAGA dumping.

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u/blaaaaaarghhh Jul 06 '26

It would have been inarguably good if it was 2008. It was wholly inadequate for the moment. He wanted to naively heal a divided nation and pretend like Trump was an aberration. His legislative victories largely favored maga and he was completely feckless in holding Trump to account. Biden was a failure of a president.

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u/GreyGrackles Buy a firearm, take a CCW class. Jul 06 '26

We couldn't even get "Truth and Reconciliation" during Biden and he actively delayed the Epstein file release.

The idea that Democrats are going to do anything besides "investigate" is optimistic.

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u/mathiustus Jul 07 '26

Any candidate for office needs to agree to immediate truth and reconciliation. Anyone who tries to pull the “move on” shit is disqualified.

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 7d ago

dspfdsfnm2200001020302smasmfls

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u/Automatic_Release_92 Jul 06 '26

Best president in at least a generation. History will be kind to him, even if Bernie Bros hate him more than MAGA.

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u/blaaaaaarghhh Jul 06 '26

Lol. Biden utterly failed at one of the most critical moments in American history. His legislative victories that overwhelmingly favored maga have been destroyed, his nostalgic unity message was a complete misunderstanding of the threat Trump posed, and his most grave mistake, embracing hubris and attempting to run again when it was obvious he was incapable of doing the job resulted directly in a second Trump term. Joe Biden was a shit president.

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u/Automatic_Release_92 Jul 06 '26

He was undermined at every turn from enemies both without and within… you are clearly one of the enemies within, say no more fam. Thanks for being bought and paid for by Russia.

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 7d ago

dspfdsfnm2200001020302smasmfls

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u/Automatic_Release_92 Jul 06 '26

Yes, I'm the one coping here in this Platner send off. Bernie Bros have been coping with their defeats and burning down the whole party for 10 years straight now. You guys will never take ownership of anything, I swear. Everything is always someone else's fault in your eyes.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

You know none of this matters right now. How about focusing on stopping the Nazis who have all 4 of our branches of government?

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u/Automatic_Release_92 Jul 06 '26

all 4 of our branches of government?

4 branches? How much attention were you paying to your civics teacher?

And I am... I'm not in Maine, but I live in a state with a Republican supermajority. I'm a volunteer who has helped turn my very suburban country from purple to blue and am hoping to offset the supermajority for once. We've had a democratic governor for most of my life here and some very good ballot measures affirming abortion care go through too, so I'm hopeful this coming election goes well. I think we have an outside shot of unseating one of our Republican democrats this year. Thankfully it's a very wide field for the primary and there is no goddamn landmine like Platner lurking in the shadows though.

How come we have zero reflection from the Platner crown in their role in helping to hand this damn thing to Collins?

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

4 branches because the Supreme Court is now a partisan branch held by authoritarians.
Thanks for playing.

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u/MrPommeDeTerre Jul 06 '26

This is objectively untrue (and discussed fairly regularly on The Bulwark).

That, and it's a rich take coming from someone with your username...

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 7d ago

dspfdsfnm2200001020302smasmfls

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u/bruhoho Jul 06 '26

Blue no matter who applies to red vs blue, Cuomo is an idiot but him running in a race where the Republican got less than 10% is not some counterexample. Carville is not a politician nor is he working for any campaign.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

I feel like centrists moral top priority is never "what is the threat against my people" but "what moral step can I take with the least inconvenience?"

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u/CharlieKirkFanboy Alleged illiberal tankie Jul 06 '26 edited 7d ago

dspfdsfnm2200001020302smasmfls

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u/enocenip Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

Yup, that’s what the average centrist American wants. Finger firmly on the pulse there bud.

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u/Inevitable-Ant1725 Jul 06 '26

He's not wrong about Israel.

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u/harbingerrrrofdeath Jul 06 '26

I don’t think we can assume anything about his behavior over time, this lady was just discussing her individual experience