We have a right to be furious with Graham Platner

I did my first Substack Live with THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali, and we talked about everything from tech fascism to Palestine and the connections between the two. I loved how wide-ranging the conversation was and how we were unencumbered by platform-imposed time limits. At the end, he surprised me by asking about Graham Platner, the now-former candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, and the short apology I had posted this week on Bluesky. I’m sharing the exchange because it’s the only place where I have spoken about the issue and its (huge) implications for insurgent movements. It’s a quick watch:

I’ll add a bit more here because I know I’m not the only one who has been losing sleep over this. My anger, first and foremost, is directed at men who abuse women, who don’t respect women, and at the unbearable reality that we live in a world where the President of the United States has been accused of rape by multiple women, and he continues to be president. That’s bad enough.

But as I said to Wajahat, I’m also gutted that this is a recurring pattern on the left. No, it doesn’t happen every time. But it’s far from the first time that allegations of sexual abuse have torn apart an important political project. It’s also not the first time women’s attempts to speak out against abuse have been drowned out by claims that they are pawns in an establishment conspiracy.

To be clear, Platner has faced a ferocious campaign by the Democratic Party establishment to take him down, as all serious left challengers do, and no centrist candidate is subject to the same level of scrutiny. But that is neither surprising nor news. When you decide to take on entrenched power, you get attacked by entrenched power. That’s Rule No. 1. It’s all the more reason to insist on high standards in everything we do on the political left, and in everyone we back.

Candidates don’t need to be perfect; they must be allowed to change, evolve over time, and make mistakes. But they do need to be honest and trustworthy. Without that baseline, the risk to the entire project is far too great. As my late father used to say about the importance of fact-checking: “If you go out on a limb, don’t saw it off.” I certainly wish I had done a better job of following that rule, and it’s why I posted a sincere apology for not doing better due diligence before I praised Platner.

And yet somehow, there are still plenty of people on the very loud, very online, mostly male left who are finding ways to make excuses for Platner and to blame everyone but him and his team, doing things like sending his wife out to run cover for his lousy behaviour. They cannot seem to learn a very simple and crucial lesson: taking sexual violence seriously isn’t a side issue getting in the way of the real fight against “the establishment.” Fighting that machinery of domination is central to building a coalition broad and strong enough to beat that establishment. When we fail women who are credibly alleging sexual abuse and sexual violence, or back people with a clear pattern of abusive behavior, our movements fall apart, and they fail. And we cannot afford to keep failing.

This is far from a complete take on all aspects of the Platner mess, of course (it’s been a busy launch week, and I’m off to my second live with … in 15 minutes). Here’s the link for those who’d like to join!

But I’m glad I can at least write in a way that goes beyond 270 characters or a two-minute video. This is part of what I envisioned for this space: a forum to share early thoughts on subjects that many of us are thinking about, free from somebody else’s character limits and algorithms designed to keep us at each other’s throats. And, of course, I want it to be a place to hear your thoughts as well, even when you think I am way off base. Over to you…

Bill McKibben, who is one of the main reasons I’m here on Substack, did something extraordinary today on Ezra Klein’s podcast. He (so, so kindly) predicted that mine and Astra Taylor’s upcoming book, End Times Fascism - and the Fight for the Living World, will be:

“A playbook for how a lot of progressives respond to the fix we find ourselves in.”

Yesterday, I asked Wajahat Ali for advice on how I could use this space, maybe as a book club or a reading group for that book when it comes out in September, and I’ve been getting great feedback. But, listening to Bill today, I am inspired by the idea of all of us developing the practical “playbook” together.

Since I’m new here, I’d love for you to share examples of ways that people have successfully engaged with books together on the platform, encouraged each other to read deeply, and, if you have seen it, made books useful to social movements in these groups. I’m all ears.