Insomuch as it ever did, character matters less now in American politics than ever. Our history is littered with deeply flawed men. Andrew Jackson was wildly corrupt, and JFK had his many thinly veiled issues with women. Heck, Grover Cleveland married a woman 28 years his junior, whom he had known since birth. Scandals are nothing new.
By any metric, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is uniquely unfit for office. Aside from the infidelity, use of a hookup app known for child sex trafficking, and fabricating much of his biography, Platner is a true-red Marxist who despises America’s founding principles and seeks to upend the capitalist system that allowed him to attend a $75,000-a-year prep school in Connecticut growing up. He mocked fallen U.S. soldiers on Reddit, blamed rape victims, and, of course, there is the Totenkopf tattoo.
Yet, Democrats are still almost uniformly supporting him. Not that there would be any excuse for this behavior by the Left and the press, regardless, but you could understand it if Platner were running against anyone besides Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). We are not talking about a constitutional conservative such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or a principled fiscal hawk like Rand Paul (R-KY). Collins is a centrist Republican and has been one of the most moderate voices in American politics for three decades.
