So...of many of the takes on the Platner scandal, one of the most refreshing that comes off to me is TYT's take. Now, this is gonna be controversial, but you know what, with this one, I'm fine with embracing controversy. Basically, TYT looks at this from a perspective of, okay, are these allegations credible, they tend to be more skeptical than most, even me (I tend to accept them at face value). They look at who is pushing them and the cynical motives that might be involved, and I think that's an argument worth considering. Republicans obviously have a vested interest in pushing this stuff. Politics is hardball and if they can drum up a sexual assault allegation, that benefits their campaign. Centrist democrats also have a vested interest in removing him. They never wanted platner as nominee, and they've been floating the idea of just subverting the will of the people the second he got the nomination. And of course, they're not gonna say it's because of ideological reasons, but because of vague appeals to morality.
And again, there's been a lot of self righteous crapbags who obviously dont like platner who hide behind that morality. Centrists are throwing every bad argument under the sun, acting like "I told you so" and acting oh so moral because they were "right" about him from the get go. Screw those guys. Of course, some on the left get the same way. Im not always a fan of hardcore leftists either. A lot of them go in with hyper feminism, "believe all women", and I'm listening to Mike Figuredo go on about how he was right all along because omg war crimes or whatever. And I'm over the self righteous morality from all sides of the aisle, and how everyone is trying to wear their virtue on their sleeve and go on about how they always had the BEST moral judgments and are therefore more moral than the rest of us. I mean, seriously, screw you guys. I don't care. I'm not gonna try to get into a peeing contest over high and mighty morality and virtue on these topics. If anything, I kinda have the opposite approach of "when they go high, I'll go low", because I find it so satisfying when I offend these morally exasperated snowflakes by refusing to play their game. And they do get so exasperated. Really. I guess that's one aspect of old conservative me that never died. I still do tend to have the rough around the edges F your feelings mindset. Of course, at this point, I recognize that these attempts at guilting and shaming people are manipulative. And I refuse to be manipulated.
And that's what a lot of this is about. These appeals to a common morality in order to pressure platner to drop out...eh, I'm not really sure they come from a good place. I do recognize cynical political entities whose goals are very opposed to my own are going to cynically display virtue to manufacture consent around pulling a progressive candidate and replacing them with a more establishment friendly one. And I recognize that these factions have a lot to gain from Platner being removed. As I said, these guys have been floating this since he won the nomination. And I'll be blunt. I'm kinda with TYT on this one. We should be asking questions, like whether the motivations behind this story releasing are legitimate, if the accusations are made in good faith, and what the political implications are for our actual legislative goals.
I mean, I'll be blunt. Unpopular opinion, but I'm fine with accepting a somewhat morally compromised individual if it means they'll be effective at passing legislation I want. A lot of people are thinking about what these scandals mean for Platner's governing style, like he's gonna pull a fetterman. But as I see it, the democrats are full of fettermans, and manchins, and sinemas, and schumers, and pelosis, and a bunch of corporatist hacks who wont do what I ask them to. Hell, I operate under the assumption that the democratic establishment is inherently bought and paid for and hostile to my goals. Again, see my argument about "political adultery." Most congresspeople and senators are adulterous by my standards. They WONT remain morally consistent in actually passing legislation that matters. That's why some of us on the left have such weird preferences with candidates. And then WE'RE called the moral purists as if that's a bad thing. Again, it's manipulative AF. it's fine to be a purist when it comes over some weird character issue, but when it comes to politics itself, like we actually expect our candidates to do things and we reward them when they do? OMG we're just like maga, apparently.
Meanwhile, maga's effective and we're not. Gee, I wonder why. Maybe it's because we'll sit around with a thumb up you know where giving our power up in the name of some weird ethics only we actually seem to believe in, while the other side will fight us with everything they got and we just cave to them?
Again, I'm not saying Platner shouldnt drop out. I do believe, despite whatever questions may or may not exist around these stories, that the accusations are legitimate enough to take seriously and he should drop out. I'm just trying to encourage people to actually think about the broader context. Like who is behind these accusations? Why are they being made? Who beenfits from them? Do we really believe that are legit accusations that just dropped from the sky at a politically advantageous moment to advance the agenda of our political adversaries? Even if the accusations are legit, obviously, they were dug up at this moment by certain people who benefit from him being removed from the nomination. I just think before we concede to such demands, we ask who these people are, why they want him gone, and how to we minimize damage to our own political movement and ideological goals? Because if we just cave because "it's the right thing to do", well, we might be surrendering a lot of power to people who don't have our best interests at heart. And that's one of the reasons why these other factions are more effective than us. Again, look at what the right is doing with Mitch McConnell. He might be braindead and they're hiding it to avoid having a special election for their senate seat. But we're just supposed to back away from a guy who is for, say, medicare for all, because of a sex scandal? What kind of double standard is that?
The reason why the world is run by sociopathic billionaires and hostile business interests is because they'll fight to ensure that the world is molded after their vision for it. Meanwhile we're too sanctimonious with our "morality" where we give away whatever hard fought advantages we get to these people because of some vague moral quandry of what it will do to us if we don't. I'm not concerned about that. I'm concerned about actually beating our adversaries so our vision gets enacted and theirs doesn't. So yeah. I guess what I'm saying with this whole line of discussion is that we need to think about the long game. We want certain goals done. What advances those goals? What doesn't? And how do we avoid being manipulated away from getting those goals accomplished? If we wanna win at politics, we have to act in ways consistent with accomplishing our goals. We shouldn't just surrender our advantages because of vague moral nonsense. Just how I see it. Sorry not sorry, haters gonna hate.
