Load bearing

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“who can beat the establishment at the media game.”

I’m not sure why you are catching strays for this. I think your comment brings up good points.

And if it collapses the broader political moment and leaves us in a position where only fascists and AIPAC democrats are allowed to engage in politics? I appreciate you at least answering. I’m not asking these questions because they have easy answers. I’m asking them because their answers are particularly difficult and consequential.

There can’t be a doubt that this is taking some wind out of the sails of the current political moment, where there was some optimism on the left. I hope that our movement is more robust than that, and I believe it to be so. However, I wont dismiss how entrenched and powerful the existing power structures are. If they can find a way to destroy this movement, they will.

So if this ends up being a witchhunt (I personally think the accusations are legitimate and will be proven to be so, but I’m making an effort to give the other side grace, and I would ask you to as well), and you participated in that, you don’t think that bears a degree of ownership?

It would be really unfortunate if Platner alone killed the movement when there’s been so much forward movement outside of Maine. Look at Mamdani. Look at Abdul El-Sayed.

Okay, so, I want to be clear that we’re exercising this question under the hypothetical that the accusation is false. The question is very narrow: If the accusation turns out to be false, and it destroys a movement, would you be ok taking responsibility for that?

Because right now party operatives are already moving to tie these accusations to Mamdani, El-Sayed, John Ossof. Not hypothetically, but actually going on news outlets from the 8th through the 9th of this week, and more today, of a concerted effort to make people like El-Sayed somehow be responsible for the accusation against Platner. I’ll update this sections with links in an edit, but I’ve seen clips of all of this happening this week from party operatives.

You have your position and I don’t disagree with it. Just like @[email protected] has there position, and I don’t disagree with it (at least in part). They also have to answer their own hard question on this.

But your question is very specific: Would you accept responsibility for destroying the movement based on a false accusation? This is all high stakes. Being wrong here matters alot and has real consequences. Your response was a bit of slight of hand so I want to drill into this one point. If you end up being wrong about this, and it allows for effectively the complete destruction of the only and best motion we’ve had in the US in the fight against fascism, is that something you are ok with taking responsibility for?

And @[email protected] has their own hard question to answer. But you have a stance, and so this question goes to you.

*Updated with links to provide direct evidence of the way this is already being used cynically.

And so if it comes out that the rape didn’t happen but that the consequences of the accusation are the seat goes to an AIPAC candidate, or worse yet, it collapses the left-wing socialist moment we’re in, are you ok with that?

added some edits.

So that’s why you see some vitriol from me on that front.

💯 understandable.

And I think this Joy-ann Reid clip (https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=dqeoETWBwc4) summarizes my position best. If its not an insider hit job, its being used exactly as if it was to do exactly what would be done if this were an AIPAC coordinated smear campaign. Its Maines choice. I mean Collins voted to send another person far more credibly accused of rape, Kavanaugh, to the supreme court. Thats a lifetime appointment, far far far more powerful than a senator. In the end its up to Maine to decide, but if the DSC tries to come in and make that decision for them, idk where that leaves things.

There are real divisions among Democrats right now, and I don’t just mean among the left. Whatever the Democrats are as a party, its clearly not a united front.

And so I guess the question I have for both sides is, how would you feel to be wrong about this, once the laundry is fully aired out? What if it comes out that the accusation turned out not to be credible, and the result of this was the handing over of the seat to an AIPAC Dem or a Republican, or even further, the full collapse of the current socialist moment the country is in (which this moment is very clearly being used for by the third way liberals)? And if you’re in defense of Platner, and they were to stay in and win, and it turns out the accusation is real, and they did commit to a violent SA, what is it exactly that you stand for?

Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Its not always clear.

But not if the alternate position is also claiming that having valid claims of sexual assault and rape have no bearing on a person’s ability to govern

No I 100% agree with that. And I don’t agree with everything that @[email protected] is saying, or at least, I’m not going to dig through their comment history with a fine tooth comb. But they are representing a voice which is happening right now in online discussion communities. As an example of this, Ryan Grim and Emma Vigeland are having a version of this exact discussion, at this very moment, and the majority report livestream (link: https://www.youtube.com/live/tr2CRLJsn90). So I elevate your discussion as an examplar of a broader conversation happening right now.

So maybe Amniotic Druid isn’t the best person to make the point, but they aren’t the only ones making the point. And I one THOUSAND percent agree with this statement:

If the left’s position is now that we don’t care about rape or rape victims or women in order to win, then fuck the left.

Which is not whats happening, at least not in the aggregate or people defensively firing off strays. I think its important to engage with both sides core points, both of which are extremely valid. The situation has all the hallmarks of credibility and all the hallmarks of an insider hit job. No material evidence has been offered. Within an hour of the Politico story, mainstream Democrats had made their decision to deplatform Platner. This is its self a form of evidence of something.

I think you meant to reply to a different comment.

I just wanted to hop in here @velma@[email protected] and @[email protected] .

First I want to acknowledge that both of you, I think, are making relevant points that have strong bearing on this. I also want to voice that both of you are representing positions which are currently being reflected across many different leftist spaces.

I think the positions can be summarized as follows:

• This accusation has more credibility than previous reporting and bears the hallmarks of credibility

• The country and systems of power have a long history of not listening to and not elevating women’s voices when it comes to sexual assault

• It would be a rather extreme situation for the accuser to come forwards in the manner they did if the accusations had no merit

• Many POC and women voiced caution around this candidate previously, and may have felt ignored or dismissed.

And the alternative position can be summarized as:

• This is an extremely high profile accusation, at a very very particular timing, against a candidate who has already been a target of similar kind of reporting, but which was so flimsy, it was practically worthy of a retraction

• The Democratic establishment who had already opposed this candidate move faster than the news did, based purely on the headlines, to completely shut down the infrastructure the campaign would require to continue being a campaign.

• This kind of accusation has been used by Democratic insiders, previously, to shut down candidates which are not preferred by party leadership

• No direct evidence of SA was provided in any of the reporting. A very vocal, but very specific coalition of online voices have been working to silence any critique of the evidence provided. Even very mainstream sources have been highly critical of the basic reporting around this.

At the same time that this has all the hallmarks of a credible accusation, it also has all the hallmarks of establishment power exploiting mob justice towards outcomes they prefer. The emails between her and her therapist are not contemporaneous. They’re recent. The therapist won’t go on the record to corroborate. When pushed for corroboration, the Politico reporters are relying effectively entirely on heresay. Brzezinski is hammering them on actual standards of journalism, and they basically didn’t use any. That matters here.

If this isn’t an establishment hit job, it would be exactly how an establishment hit job would be structured. Talking heads have immediately gone to work to say that its “the lefts fault” for all of this, to try and use it to break a larger movement.

Every accusation is a confession.

Exactly. Its utterly fucking ridiculous to suggest that there isn’t a Democratic base. Its just that the base has been at odds with party leadership for 10 years.

If there’s proof present it and arrest him.

Look I’m still on the side of believing her. I still think the allegations are have all the hall marks of being credible. But hallmarks aren’t direct evidence and nothing thusfar, I think, would stand in a criminal investigation.

But if there are texts, Graham will have the other side of the conversation of those texts. If the allegations are not true, Graham has some real footwork to do to identify and elevate that evidence asap. If it is true, I just can’t imagine a sane or rational person denying it as strongly as Graham did. But the denial tells me more is going on here and there is a requirement to do more than just accept conjecture (which the entirety of the DNC political apparatus has).

And with that, its not like they didn’t try in multiple ways. I’m more interested in the Platner denial at this point. It was incredibly forceful.

If they can produce concrete evidence that the claims made against them are false, it could flip this whole thing on its head and I could see them easily running as a write-in.

Ahem…

There still a few days left in this week.

What I see is that in Platners sign off, they left a poison pill in the process Democrats will have to reckon with. They clearly are making the point that this is completely unfounded, and coming from within the DNC/ Maine Democrats. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. You can believe what it will, but so will Maine Democrats and especially Maine Volunteers associated with the Platner campaign. And this alone also leaves Platner with some leverage.

Like it or not, if Platner doesn’t endorse or support the candidate who follows, they can’t win. Platners Volunteer and base of support is so large, that without basically all of them supporting the new candidate, that candidate can’t win.

Not interested in the NYT’s opinions on this.