Comment on Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior

MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• LordMayor@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Probably, because there seems to be a lot more scrutiny of this guy’s behavior than a lot of other candidates and sitting politicians.

  He’s almost definitely an asshole but they really seem to be trying hard to make stuff that’s kinda bad into something disqualifying when there are way bigger fish that could be fried.

  This suggests that those in power fear him. People like that.

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  • MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Probably, because there seems to be a lot more scrutiny of this guy’s behavior than a lot of other candidates and sitting politicians.

    This doesn’t seem particularly accurate. On the Dems side, they’ve thrown out a lot of members for less (Al Franken screams to mind) and I can’t think of anyone who has had a Nazi tattoo… Platner’s getting hit in part because it’s his first campaign so he hasn’t been any similar scrutiny and sure, if you want to say the DNC elite are working with the media somehow but they’re unearthing the same stuff that’s going to come out in a general election, but it’ll be nastier and harder then.

    It’s worth actually reading the article, there’s a lot there that makes me feel *really * uncomfortable. If I were voting in that election, I’d have to think really hard about whether I could in good conscience vote for him and whether that might be betraying who I am and the women in my life. And in a race as close as Maine is going to be (Not sure I would want to bet against Collins) this stuff can make the difference.

    Some of the women also raised questions about his trustworthiness. Mr. Platner’s insistence that he did not know that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol until it became a campaign issue last fall was simply not true, Ms. Fifield said. After all, she said, he had taught her the word for it years earlier, referring to it as “my Totenkopf.”

    Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he “never hit me, he never punched me.”

    But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.

    During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.”

    If you think back to other candidates in their first campaign, a lot of crazy stuff comes out. (Remember Mark Robinson?) I’m not sure covering our ears is a good strategy. I’d much rather dig pretty hard so we know for danged sure nothing worse is coming out anytime soon. (What do we do if one of his exes alleges mental abuse? Physical?)

    I dunno if this is disqualifying but as the party that’s supposed to be the good ones…

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• reddig33@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This particular NYT story just has the stench of a “swift boat veterans” operation.

  en.wikipedia.org/…/Swift_Vets_and_POWs_for_Truth

  People’s personal lives are, personal. If he had been shown to have raped someone, or was a pedo, or was demonstratively a massive hypocrite, I’d be more concerned. But I don’t care if someone had an affair or was a messy boyfriend twenty years ago or whatever. I’m more concerned of how they are going to do their job.

  I do have concerns this dude could turn out to be another Fetterman. But so far it looks like a risk worth taking because Susan Collins has a horrible voting record.

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  • MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This particular NYT story just has the stench of a “swift boat veterans” operation.

    That seems like a wildly inaccurate comparison. I’m old enough to remember the Swiftboating and had to double check but comparing his actual exes to folks who weren’t there just doesn’t make much sense. To refresh your memory, Swiftboating was super sketchy because, as Wikipedia notes:

    These claims caused tremendous controversy during the election, particularly because the organization’s members had not been in a place to assess Kerry,

    To the larger, meh, I don’t care, well, to each their own. I personally feel that some of the physical shit to partners about a dozen years ago is a marker of character and some shit I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. Also having what you know to be a Nazi tattoo and covering it up when you have aspirations of office is, at best, icky.

    Were he Republican, I’d be pretty unimpressed. Were he dating a friend or family member, I would damn well be looking for any suspicious bruise and be ready to do something unadvisable if I saw one.

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