Graham Platner has already quit the race to be the next senator from Maine, but defenses of the once-rising Democrat are only growing. Many of them aren’t coming from the progressives who had boosted the working class oyster farmer-turned-politician, but from people who typically loathe the left.
“Most every guy I know did what he’s being accused of at one point or another with their girlfriend at some point after a night of drinking,” complained the Donald Trump-loving comedian Adam Carolla on Sunday’s episode of his eponymous podcast. “It’s basically like: I’m drunk, I’m horny, I weigh 50 pounds more than you, we’re gonna have sex, it’s not really rape because we sleep in the same bed.”
Platner officially dropped out of his race on July 10 after Jenny Racicot, an ex-partner, accused him of breaking into her home in the middle of the night in 2021 while drunk, and forcing her to have sex. When Carolla’s producer asked if he considered what he described as rape, the podcaster replied, “That’s standard drunken blue collar dude behavior.”
Carolla insisted he still didn’t like Platner, calling him a “weirdo” and a “deviant.” But when it came to Racicot’s allegations, he was a lot more forgiving. “We’ve been calling everything rape and I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the podcaster concluded.
Carolla may be among the most famous, but he’s far from the only MAGA figure who is rushing forward to defend Platner from Democrats who called on him to step down after Racicot’s serious and credible allegations were first reported in POLITICO. While plenty of Republicans are joining in condemning Platner — hypocritically, considering their allegiance to Donald Trump, who was found liable by a grand jury for a similar assault — some on the right seem to spy an opportunity to appeal to young men, who voted for Trump in large numbers in 2024, but have been drifting away in recent months.
Right-wing dirty trickster Christopher Rufo released an “emergency podcast” last week and opened with a provocative question: “Did Graham Platner rape Jennifer Racicot, or did the political establishment rape Graham Platner?” Michael Tracey, Rufo’s guest who purports not to be a Republican but is nonetheless a regular Trump defender, has also been outraged over Platner’s resignation. On X, Tracey said that “LOTS of people” have “‘messy’ dating/romantic histories,” but they shouldn’t be “excluded from public service because scoundrels will exaggerate/distort stuff.” He produced zero evidence of this alleged distortion from Racicot. But Rufo continues to falsely insist that her allegations are being accepted “without any kind of scrutiny.” (POLITICO corroborated the story with emails and text messages provided by Racicot.)
“He should have stayed in,” MAGA gadfly Mike Cernovich tweeted. “Now he’s a zero.”
Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and Trump’s one-time dining companion, ridiculed Racicot’s story by saying it’s not rape just because you say “stop, stop, I don’t feel like it.” Because sometimes, he explained, people “get drunk and want to have sex.” Fuentes added, “If it were a true rape, she would go to the cops.” (In reality, researchers have long established that many victims don’t report precisely because they don’t want to face the abuse and disbelief Racicot is now receiving.)
Despite trying to establish herself as a friend of sexual abuse survivors, former GOP Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene answered the siren’s call of rape denial. A proper rape victim, she tweeted, should “report it immediately . . . And if you had consensual sex with him years ago, don’t turn it into rape for politics.” Greene later deleted the post, likely after being reminded that she’s tanking her own goal to be seen as an advocate for the victims of deceased predator Jeffrey Epstein, most of whom also stayed silent for years.
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Men under 30 voted for Trump by 56% in 2024, a dramatic change from 2020, when the same age group only backed the Republican president by 41%. Shortly after the election, Trump’s support with the demographic started slipping, and early polling suggested they could swing wildly back to the Democrats by the November midterms. Many self-proclaimed leftists saw Platner’s rise as an opportunity to win over young male voters with overt messages that he could lead the way toward dramatically reducing women’s role in Democratic politics, pulling them out of leadership and silencing feminist concerns especially. (It’s important to note Platner himself did not endorse this view, despite admitting to having said sexist things in the past.)
“Graham Platner represents a rejection of Dem HR lady politics,” presumed progressive Matt Stoller wrote in a now-deleted X post a few weeks ago.
Left-wing journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote a blog post in early June celebrating Platner for ending the “era of smoothgroin politicians.” He tried to justify the metaphor by suggesting he’s saying they’re not plastic dolls, but most people recognize that “smoothgroin” describes the genitals of most women as well.
“If they had any f**king whispers” of sexual assault, declared leftist podcaster Kyle Kulinski in June, “they would have had them b****es front and center.” He accused the New York Times, which broke an earlier story about Platner’s alleged behavior, of being “desperate” to take down his campaign.
Plenty of people backed Platner through past scandals without calling women names like “HR lady” or the B-word. These supporters were willing to overlook some flaws because they believed in his message — at least until this more serious allegation came out. These guys, however, couldn’t help but express their support with overtly sexist language that frames women and their concerns as an albatross around the Democrats’ neck. Clearly, many ostensible leftists believe that male voters would be so easily won to their side with overt contempt for women.
Platner himself resigned with sour grapes, insisting he’s being unfairly treated and implying he’s the victim of a conspiracy. So it’s no wonder many on the right see an opportunity. The size of the audience for people like Stoller, Klippenstein and Kulinski shows that there are some men who are intrigued by the promise of a leftism that leaves women, who are slightly more than half the population, behind.
Platner’s fall shows that while feminists are hardly triumphant, the belief that women deserve respect hasn’t been totally abandoned by Democrats. Men who are grumpy about that fact may be more open right now to the message that it’s time to turn MAGA, or go back if they left. No wonder these right-wing influencers are pouncing.
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