Why I Supported Graham Platner and What It Means for January 6 2.0

It's All About January 2029

Graham Platner has been credibly accused of rape, and if he has not already done so, should drop out, apologize, and face civil as well as criminal penalties for his actions. His role and his activities in the military should be reinvestigated by an independent tribunal, with further charges coming as warranted.

For my part, I deeply regret supporting such a flawed candidate, and I join over 150,000 Mainers as well as millions of Americans nationwide who have found with disgust that he lied when he said that there were no further allegations, and that he has continually lied before and after. This realization is dawning on some more slowly than others.

*ahem*

Rapists and potential war criminals, reformed or not, do not belong in the Senate. The fact that rapists and war criminals presently occupy the Senate does not mean we should debase ourselves and our polity by perpetuating that evil, that harm.

Still, the fact I supported a clearly flawed man demands an answer. I don’t have the typical answer; for one, I supported him fully, beyond the Senate, up to and including the Presidency. I did not do so because of any one policy or attribute, but rather the sum of all he was; beyond all his then-visible flaws, I saw a man with a boundless passion and desire to win, to not go quietly into that good night of fascism and Trumpism forever.

When Donald Trump attempted to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election, culminating in his backers besieging and near-sacking the Capitol complex, we entered into a new phase of American history. No more will the guarantee of a peaceful transfer of power, in place since the 1864 Presidential election, actually be guaranteed. A violent era awaits us in our futures, and without correct leadership, we will surely be consumed by the violence and fall into tyranny.

When I looked at others in the Democratic field, the supposed frontline figures against this rising tide of fascism, who did I see in early 2026? On the left, I saw losers. AOC, who stayed attached to Biden’s hip as he careened off the electoral cliff in 2024? Bernie, who is far too old perhaps to even run for reelection in his seat? Ro Khanna, who makes blunders and bluffs for every other coin flip? No—none of them, none of them were fighters, or more importantly, winners. Sure, they won their races, but winning national power, holding it? No, never. In the center, I of course found corrupt imbeciles, the likes of Newsom and Slotkin, who either attached themselves to the sinking institutions of big Trumpist capital or Israel or both. And the right—the abyss—Hillary Clinton and her ilk—I found the heart of darkness itself: Jeffrey Epstein, his island, and all who ventured there.

No, no one, in the Democratic Party could both win the election in 2028 and ensure that they take the oath of office, and stay in office. At least, that’s what I saw in January of 2026.

Let me restate the obvious: Trump (or his successor) will try a counter-constitutional coup. This is inevitable. We should stop pretending it isn’t.

And if Trump does attempt something—anything—there must be swift, and severe consequences. The rule of law, of the very order of things, is at stake. If we have a repeat of the Merrick Garland DOJ, we should very well surrender the country to fascist authoritarians, for we might as well have done so by our own ill-action.

So when Graham Platner came onto the scene, with his fiery rhetoric, his background of literally being in the line of fire, I was instantly enthused. Or so I have said.

To tell it true, I did eek and eep at his tattoos, earlier in 2025. I thought him to be a crude parody of Ezra Klein’s then-recent demand that the Democratic Party ‘draw no red lines’ when it came to candidate recruitment. I condemned him, in my own way, even.

But then people moved on. Polls and fundraising indicated that Democratic voters believed that Platner supposedly listened and learned, did the so-called “work”, by going to therapy. He had the backing of his wife, his community, his family. His faults became easier to paper over with time. When the first accusation dropped, and it was revealed it came from a Republican operative who supported Brett Kavanaugh, it was easy to dismiss out of hand as a fabrication, or partisan exaggeration. I believe many of us, myself included, fell into a pattern of wishful thinking when it came to Platner. I certainly never would have supported someone who had actually raped anyone, to be very clear!

And, over time, he actually got stronger: more fundraising, more supporters. Yes, 150,000 people supported him in Maine, but so did millions across the country. I saw him then less as someone to support and more as a tremendous tidal wave of gravitronic energy. Utterly unstoppable and unshakable, he had a glide path not just to the Senate, but to the White House, if he wanted it. He had something no other present Democrat in the party had: raw Charisma, something that no one between the ages of 40 and 80 in the Democratic Party has demonstrated since Barack Obama.

So, I bowed myself to the inevitable. Surely as the sun rose, Platner would rise. And, my heart would kindle with that rising sun, that rising Platner, with a sort of rising hope for the future. Platner would seize the long-dormant mantle of Obama, and deliver unto us the Change and Hope we were all promised, all those long years ago.

Then I discovered this week he’s a reprobate liar who is credibly accused of sexually assaulting at least two women, but perhaps several more. I’ve even heard tell of abuses and assaults he performed while overseas, but those need more corroboration. Just as the Presidents of the United States, Clinton and Trump alike, Platner should be behind bars and forced to pay tort reparations to the survivors and their families for the rest of his natural life.

But do I turn my heart to despair? No. Not yet. There is hope, yet.

Abdul El-Sayed is a fighter. If he were elected President, he would not let fascism remain rooted within our institutions. He would seek a just reestablishment of a coalitional, democratic mandate that achieves the broad social democratic welfare agenda that liberals, socialists, and progressives alike (the core base of the Party) have been pining for, for decades. And yes, the core base of the party is going to get what it wants.

I’m sorry, I need to turn my hackles onto the centrists for a moment. You cannot honestly stand up on a high horse and try to negotiate down from universal healthcare, or other core base demands. You will not convince the pharmaceutical and medical industries to not back fascist, pro-January 6 Republicans over you by supporting a more mealy-mouthed version of universal healthcare, and more importantly, you won’t convince the base. What the base wants, the base gets because guess what? The base doesn’t just vote and donate; they volunteer, they pay attention, in ways that even the best ads can’t replicate. You cannot win a primary without the base, and as we saw with Kamala 2024, you cannot win a national general election without that base.

If El-Sayed runs for President, he has my support. He is, to the best of my knowledge, a family man, a PhD for crying out loud; never a war criminal, never a rapist—a moral man, with the right ideas and right temperament, who supports popular policies the base also supports. But, having noticed El-Sayed’s arrival onto the national stage, my heart turns a-flutter. What other glimmers of hope exist, waiting to be uncovered? We need a sole, singular figure of authority who can lead us out of the darkness of Trump. If it is El-Sayed alone, he has earned my support. But if others exist, let them come forward, and let the best candidate win.

For if the best candidate does not win, if we are stuck with not an El-Sayed but with an AOC or a Newsom, we might as well give Trump the crown he so pines for.

January 6 2.0: The Coming Storm

It’s coming. It’s inevitable. So, what do we do?

I don’t know. No one does, not really, likely not even the Republicans know what they are doing. But very likely, they will have learned from their prior mistakes. The next time a Democrat wins the Presidency, they will not suffer the fate of releasing their hold onto power peacefully. They will rally their forces, and attempt to storm the capitol once more and change the results of the election by force. And, if we are not careful, if we are not prudent and strong, they will get away with it.

What we need right now isn’t really a what but a who. I thought that who might have been Graham Platner. Now hope soars in my heart at El-Sayed, and the unforeseeable others who may yet arise.

One of those people will unite the Democratic Party and win the nomination. The nominee will then go on to best Trump in the November 2028 general elections. And then, that nominee must go on to ensure that they are able to seize the reins of power from Trump, and keep that power away from the hands of the fascists.

It all comes down to one person. In our constitution, in our present political economy, the President is a solitary power unto themselves. They alone can move, can act, more so than any organization such as the DSA. If the President can start and end wars, can murder untold thousands overseas without even a warrant from Congress, the President can do anything.

And so our Presidential candidate must be brave, must be kind, must be moral, must be just, but most importantly: must be brave. For they will encounter more than hostile court cases declaring fraud, but potential arrest or even death; the fascist state’s fatal bullet meeting their polite brow, like Pinochet delivered unto Allende. Those are the stakes in 2028. No Democrat should run for President with an illusion of there being lower risk; the stakes are truly and categorically apocalyptic for both sides.

So go forth Abdul!: crush Haley Stevens, and climb to the podium of reclaimer of the Obama mantle. Others: challenge him if you must, but always listen to the voice and the wisdom of the people. If the people do not want you, bend your knee to El-Sayed; just as El-Sayed will bend his knee to you if the positions were reversed. And most importantly, for everyone else: never forget January 6. It will happen again. These Republicans will burn our Capitol down before handing power over peacefully. Only the right leader in the right place at the right time can stop them.

An inevitable fate, or a future’s past, avoidable?