re: Platner - But if personal imperfection disqualifies a candidate, Washington DC should empty itself immediately.

[QueerDuck]

92. I appreciate the response, though I think you are creating a false binary.

I think you are creating a false binary. It isn't a choice between "policy" and "performance". It is a question of whether a candidate's worldview (revealed in how they speak about others when they think no one is listening) is a valid data point when predicting how they will treat those people when in power.

You mention that we have supported politicians in the past who held similar private views. My argument is that we shouldn't continue to do so. If we have spent years supporting politicians who actively degraded our community, that is an indictment of our past standards, not a blueprint for our future ones.

Furthermore, the apologies I have seen for Platner’s remarks strike me as weak and purely transactional ... they signal a desire to 'move on' rather than an actual desire to address the issues or acknowledge the damage done. That is a far cry from a genuine reckoning or an effort to prove that he is a different person today.

Your dismissal of these concerns as mere 'internet history' ignores that his attitude is not limited to long-deleted Reddit posts; even recently, he has continued to use slurs in interviews while dismissing legitimate questions about his judgment. Even the tattoo cover-up was less about genuine feelings of remorse, regret, embarrassment and personal accountability... and one that leaned toward something akin to: "there! I covered it! happy now?"

Suggesting that we should ignore evidence of a candidate's character in favor of a platform (or that doing so is a "luxury'') seems to be a strategy of political convenience, not a principled stance. I don't feel "pressed" by internet history... I am interested in evolving our expectations so we stop excusing indifference.

I prefer to hold all candidates to a standard of public and private consistency, and I don't believe that is a luxury. I believe it is the bare minimum requirement for any serious political movement.

Ultimately, I recognize that my personal reservations won't change the political outcome in Maine. Platner will be nominated and will likely defeat Collins. But I am tired of being asked to sacrifice my standards and self-respect for the sake of political expediency. I have no interest in being told to sit down, shut up, and ignore these patterns. Because you and I clearly have fundamentally different thresholds for what we consider disqualifying, there is no value in continuing this exchange.