Here's the most basic thing about Platner:
Let's pretend he's a legit redemption story. I know how much people love a redemption story, in part because it allows for self-forgiveness of our own mistakes.
It seems like the more I confess the shitty things I did when I was younger, the quicker people rush to forgive me. [It's a little crazy-making sometimes because I haven't forgiven myself for all of it, and I'm not comfortable with people trusting me too much. I know me better than they do]
It's one thing if your redemption story *starts* with the mistakes — ones that everyone knows already — and public growth happens from there. Sure, go ahead and run for office. There are no skeletons hiding in closets
But if your claim to change happens while your sordid past is being uncovered by others? That's not a redemption story. That's just a belief that you can get away with it, coupled with an absolutely insane amount of entitlement
Seriously, fuck that guy
@kims I know I'm playing devil's advocate here, but the NYT article itself says, and I quote, "several women [...] describ[ed] Mr. Platner as a fun and caring partner, and saying they felt safe with him". The only woman with worrisome (IMO) allegations is a literal Republican operative who co-founded a group titled Ladies for Kavanaugh in support of Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, and her allegations couldn't be corroborated by the NYT (something that's usually a necessity for such an article to clear the hurdle for publishing).
Platner is definitely not a perfect candidate, but it's holding "our" side to purity standards they don't, and insisting on harm reduction policies that don't fix any of the root problems in society that has brought us here. His politics are still way better than the alternatives (again, IMO), and any long form interview of his convinces me he's not faking it.
