In a New York Times discussion between two liberal graybeards, E.J. Dionne and Robert Siegel, their young right-wing interlocutor, Sarah Isgur, wags a finger at Democrats while pretending to wag a finger at both parties:
Isgur: … David French wrote this in The New York Times — I thought the piece was brilliant — that this idea that Democrats are going to get behind Graham Platner, a guy in Maine, who, until quite recently, had a Nazi tattoo — an S.S. tattoo — and has said horrific things about women and sexual assault, because that’s the way that we have to fight Donald Trump. That’s the way we can win, by being more like Donald Trump. It’s just a sad statement, I think, on 2026 midterm politics that, again, I hope the ship is turning, maybe slowly, where the Graham Platners and the Republican equivalents lose.
What Isgur doesn’t say, perhaps because she’s in denial, is that “the Republican equivalents” of Trump are pretty much the entire party. Hatred, especially hatred for Democrats and groups who are acceptable to bash, is Republicans’ default mode now.
Isgur guilt-trips Dionne into more or less agreeing with her that Democrats support Platner because they believe that sometimes you need a bad person to take on a bad enemy:
Dionne: I want to go to your point about the Democratic image. Democrats are getting behind Graham Platner because they see a Democratic majority in the Senate as the only way to check Trump.
Isgur: Right, because it’s about power, not about principle, not about character. Well, it is about principle on some issues. All the things they said — that Republicans shouldn’t support Donald Trump because there were things more important than power — all went out the window the second someone dangled the Senate majority in front of them.
Siegel: You have Platner as a virtual David Duke on the ticket.
Dionne: Yeah. And I don’t think that’s fair to Platner, but I think the Democrats are saying, “This is a crisis election. We need a majority no matter what.”
That’s not what Democrats who support Platner are saying, because Platner is not a Democratic Trump. I’ll explain below.
Here’s the David French column Isgur is citing. French cites the skeletons in Platner’s closet, which are very real: the Nazi death’s-head tattoo, the online remarks arguing that some women are complicit in their own rapes and that Black people are bad tippers, and so on. These are bad. If you can’t possibly support Platner because of this history, I understand.
But Platner is not running as that guy. He’s running as a person who has stopped being that guy. You can conclude that the reformed version of Platner is phony, and that he hasn’t really grown or changed, but his supporters believe, or want to believe, that he has changed. They’re supporting the person he’s been on the campaign trail, not the person he was when he got that tattoo and said those offensive things. They’re not consciously voting for a bad guy. They’re voting for a guy they think is good now.
Platner hasn’t said offensive things since he started his campaign. His supporters are backing the Platner they see on the campaign trail now. Trump, by contrast, has continued to say and do extremely offensive things since he took that escalator ride in 2015. His supporters back that Trump.
French says that Platner’s voters are just like Trump supporters:
I know exactly where this process leads. For the past 10 years and counting, I’ve had a front-row seat at the festival of rationalization that’s turned the Republican Party into a Trump cult of personality.
The slide begins when you tell yourself that the stakes are just too high for normal politics. Of course I wouldn’t support this candidate in better times. But now? American democracy is at stake.
Is that what Trump voters have been saying? Nope. They support him precisely because he demonizes immigrants, Muslims, liberals and other political opponents, the media, women (especially Black female reporters) who challenge him … the list goes on. Trump’s voters find his hatred invigorating because they share it. Platner’s voters find the hatred he’s expressed in his past problematic, but want to believe it’s behind him now.
If Democrats were becoming like Republicans, there’d be a wave of Graham Platners across the country. But name another Democrat in a key race who has a long history of offensive statements. James Talarico? Roy Cooper? Mary Peltola? Sherrod Brown? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. By contrast, there are Trump-like candidates running all over America on the GOP line: Tommy Tuberville, Ken Paxton, Paul Le Page, and a host of incumbents (Randy Fine, the aforementioned Andy Ogles, etc.). Trumpism is the lingua franca of the GOP.
Platner’s supporters wish he didn’t have that baggage. Trump’s supporters don’t even see his baggage as baggage. It’s a feature, not a bug. That’s the difference between the two parties.
Published with permission of No More Mister Nice Blog
