Source: Los Angeles Times
by Matt K Lewis
“Under old ‘pre-Trump’ rules, [Graham] Platner’s campaign would have withered instantly after revelations that he once had a Totenkopf SS tattoo, previously identified himself as a communist, said Black people were poor tippers, and wrote that white people ‘actually are’ as racist and stupid as Trump thinks they are. Instead, after all this surfaced, Platner actually rose in the polls. … Maybe Maine Dems have concluded that moral purity tests are politically suicidal after years of watching heterodox figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk drift away from the party. … Or maybe Maine Democrats have absorbed the same lesson Republicans adopted in 2016: Once voters stop treating scandal as disqualifying, policing your own side for off-the-field behavior starts to look like unilateral disarmament.” (05/29/26)