"Larger, and harder, muscles than most": American Politics, June 2026

Have at it.

No dignity, I like the way you work it ...

american politics, june 2026: a pedophile looks at 80

hearing the title track in my head in a KMFDM-style

Muscle and hate

american politics, june 2026: a pedophile looks at 80

excellent

honestly it’s kind of insane how relevant Nitzer Ebb’s “Join in the Chant” is

All I know is, should the Maine guy get elected and accrue actual power, we can be absolutely sure that power will not make his behavior worse.

we can be absolutely sure that power will not make his behavior worse.

if your point is that power always makes people behave worse, then that should apply equally to every candidate for every office everywhere, so it has no practical application here. if it doesn't always apply then there is no grounds for certainty.

I don't know if I had a point beyond an easy jab at the guy, but I do know that, as history has shown again and again, power rarely makes people behave *better*.

possibly applies even more to people with a bunch of red flags

Which is to say, as soon as he gets elected he's probably going to get a skull tattooed on his forehead and start sexting everyone with a cell phone.

It'll be like that U2 album, except when you look at your phone it will be a Platner dick pic.

sad but true

like all of us, I can imagine a far better person I'd rather see elected to the Senate. imagination can be cruel.

as history has shown again and again, power rarely makes people behave *better*.

Go Go Godzilla

Platner probably got one of these on his back
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Boc.png/1280px-Boc.png

ok watch it

like all of us, I can imagine a far better person I'd rather see elected to the Senate. imagination can be cruel.

If only the party had nominated Saint Johnny Unbeatable! (Meaning "saint" in the strictly non-religious sense, of course, because you can't trust those churchy types.)

unperson i'm having trouble figuring out what is sarcasm and isn't, sorry? i haven't been glued to this thread so i'm just reading your posts in isolation, so i'm probably just confused heh

but, just to give an example of how i think i might be misreading you, it _seems_ like you're using sarcasm voice (here and at the end of the last thread) to criticize those who have problems with platner's...issues?

and if i'm right on that, then i guess your stance is like "pobody's nerfect, just support the democrat, he'll be better than susan collins"?

but again i think i'm misreading everything, confused

especially in response to other vaguely sarcastic posts

He won't just be better than Collins, he'd be better than any other Democratic challenger currently nominated for the US Senate.

let's not be hasty

i guess your stance is like "pobody's nerfect, just support the democrat, he'll be better than susan collins"?

No. My stance is that based on the platform page on his website and every video of a speech or an interview I've seen him give in 2026, Graham Platner would be the leftmost senator in the Democratic Party. And that people who say no one should vote for him because he used to be a Reddit troll, or because he got drunk and got a fucked-up tattoo, or (worst of all) because he was texting with women who are not his wife, have their fucking heads up their asses.

I'm completely ok with saying people should vote for someone else in the primary. Assuming he wins, I'm also ok with saying they should vote for him in November, but I am 100% going to point out he's a nazi at every opportunity because Democrats really should do better.

He's not a fucking Nazi.

Just mentally copy and paste that under every post here that says he is from now on.

you can say it a million times, but he fits the profile perfectly

xp that's clear, thanks unperson! probably don't need to put have their fucking heads up their asses in italics but hey, when you have 100% knowledge about the future, that's a gift and you gotta do what you gotta do

you can say it a million times, but he fits the profile perfectly

What are you, the Mein Hunter?

i'm actually bothered more by his sexting with half a dozen people up until his wife and campaign confronted him about it last fall. it's not about the character thing, it's more like that's a really bad sign about his leadership qualities (putting the campaign at risk with his personal behavior) and it says that when his dick is involved, he makes very bad decisions. that's not in the distant past or a dumb tattoo - it speaks to who he is right now

but my head is way up here in my ass and it's been dark ever since my headcam ran out of batteries so i don't know

the tattoo stuff, i think, is also really dumb and a very ominous sign about how dumb this guy has been.

but yeah, you can know all that and also hold unperson's perspective - that before he fucks up and has to step down for a scandal, he'd be a reliably progressive vote in the senate, that would be awesome. a reasonable person can believe all the worst about platner and still vote for him. a reasonable person could also be aware of just a bit of platner's life and choices and decide not to vote for him because of that. neither one of those decisions are cause for belittling each other here

up until his wife and campaign confronted him about it last fall.

That's not what happened. He stopped sexting a year before his campaign started. His wife brought it up in a campaign meeting when they were discussing dirt that could be dug up. And someone fired from the campaign leaked what she said to the NYT.

platner is hot af. i'd go flatner for platner.

need alfred's opinion tbqh

In funnier news, Trump is now backing away from the J6 payout fund... according to Axios:

The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion "weaponization" fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial conduct under his predecessor, two senior administration officials told Axios.

"It's dead for now," one of the sources said.

Why it matters: Bashed as a political slush fund that could be tapped by those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Trump's proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback in the GOP-led House and Senate.

Of course, the whole Payout fund to J6ers was a compromise--Trump just wanted to take the money for himself.

This CNBC article is fun, too.

Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over

President Donald Trump on Monday shrugged off the possible collapse of peace negotiations with Iran, telling CNBC, “I don’t care if they’re over, honestly.”

“I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CNBC’s Eamon Javers in a phone interview midday Monday, saying he thought the protracted discussions “started to get very boring.”

Trump had been asked about the prospect of Iran ending talks with the U.S. in light of reporting earlier Monday that Iranian negotiators would take that step — and also move to “completely block” the Strait of Hormuz — due to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.

Asked if the Iranians told him that they are not going to negotiate further, Trump said, “No, they haven’t.”

...

In his call with CNBC, Trump said he wasn’t worried about oil prices, which had spiked after Iranian state news outlet Tasnim reported earlier Monday that Tehran was halting negotiations and clamping down on the Hormuz Strait.

“I think the oil will be dropping like a rock in the very near, you know, the very near distance,” Trump said.

But he also insisted that Americans who understand the importance of halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions will not mind higher gas prices as a result of the war.

“Once you explain that this is all about Iran having a nuclear weapon, people are willing to pay a little bit more,” he said.

Trump asserted that prices at the pump will drop “very quickly.” But he also repeatedly signaled he was in no hurry to restart the stalled negotiations with Iran.

“If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring,” Trump told CNBC.

every day, i wake up hoping that he has died

I wonder what would win if you gave people a choice between $3 a gallon gas and Iran w/nukes and $5 gas and no nukes in Iran.

Trump just wanted to take the money for himself.

he was, after all, the ultimate J6er!

I wonder what would win if you gave people a choice between $3 a gallon gas and Iran w/nukes and $5 gas and no nukes in Iran.

i had a similar thought, and i think we both know the answer

Too many people would be cool with anything if Trump gave them $3. "You are now all better off today than you were yesterday! You're welcome!"

i have a feeling that’s why his signature is going to be on our cash

All the cash in going to say "pay to the order of Donald Trump," and then his signature, and then he will get all the money.

Trump asserted that prices at the pump will drop “very quickly.” But he also repeatedly signaled he was in no hurry to restart the stalled negotiations with Iran.

“If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring,” Trump told CNBC.

He truly is the President this country deserves, like an avatar of our collective stupidity.

"I'm bored. Let's do something else."

I'm glad he can at least still be frank with us.

I don’t trust platner, haven’t since the tattoo story came out, but he’s running for senate, not to be my friend. I don’t think working to help elect a republican is the best of bad choices here

Voting should never make you feel bad, is what I'm learning. You should step into the booth with a song in your heart and a bluebird on your shoulder, knowing that you have virtue on your side.

what i'm learning is that there are only two objects in the universe: right, and wrong, and they are placed 4 trillion lightyears apart. there are no opinions between these two objects. all opinions exist only as right, or wrong, 4 trillion miles apart

4 trillion miles lightyears apart

well on the actual ballot there is and if there's anything we can be certain of it's that anyone who is going to reliably vote to enable Trump is going to do a hell of a lot more to dehumanize people than just throwing slurs around. kinda like how people refused to vote for one candidate because of their support for Israel and now we've got a guy bombing schools in Iran for funsies. all this is to say the state of things in this country fucking sucks and everyone who lives here has a stain on their soul regardless of what they do or don't do. as much as I want this guy to go down in flames to send a message to the party about not nominating complete pieces of shit I also don't want Susan Collins to cast the deciding vote (despite "deep concerns") for putting anyone who votes Democrat into a concentration camp

to send a message to the party about not nominating complete pieces of shit

The thing is that the party didn't want this guy, the Maine voters did

In a scenario in which Mills doesn't drop out, is there any chance in which these latest stories are enough to boost her to victory? Or does Platner win, anyway? (I'm inclined to think the latter.)

The thing is that the party didn't want this guy, the Maine voters did

I'll repeat what I said above:

The Democratic Party was not interested in recruiting anyone to run against Susan Collins. They were happy to leave her right where she was, or maaaaaybe run a shambling corpse against her just to claim they tried. Platner was recruited, he said yes, has expressed positions that if he's elected will make him one of the most left-wing senators in the country, and the people of Maine seem happy with him. It's awful to contemplate, I know.

I reread some old posts earlier and it was fun watching Platner supporters become more vociferous over time as more and more stuff came out. It is too bad the nazi tattoo didn't end his run

_to send a message to the party about not nominating complete pieces of shit_

The thing is that the party didn't want this guy, the Maine voters did

they haven’t yet, the primary is Tuesday

In the opinion polls I meant, enough to make Mills drop out.

It should also be noted that the DSCC did not want Platner, but other Dem-aligned organizations and individual Dems like Sanders and Warren have endorsed him. (My wife initially liked him because he received an early endorsement from David Hogg's PAC.)

I reread some old posts earlier and it was fun watching Platner supporters become more vociferous over time as more and more stuff came out. It is too bad the nazi tattoo didn't end his run

― rob, Friday, June 5, 2026 10:50 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

well, there was a time when other options were still possible

on a more positive note, Abu El Sayed in MI looks pretty intersting. He's trailing Stevens right now though

There were a couple of weeks of early voting in Maine before the first sexting story came out, so Platner might already be the winner even before election day. Will definitely be interesting to see the difference between the early vote and day-of ballots.

The best scenario I see atm is for Mills to win via a big election day swing. Assuming Platner wins the primary and doesn't drop out of the race — which both seem more likely than not — then sure, I still hope he wins against Collins. We live in a dumb governing system where having 50 vs. 51 seats in the Senate matters a whole lot, and as objectively bad a guy as Platner seems to be, that's one bad guy vs. Republican control of the Senate for the next two years of the Trump administration. You can argue that either way, but you can't pretend there's actually an easy ethical answer to it. Sometimes all there are are bad choices.

I doubt Platner will drop out.. he's already doing the 'We all make mistakes, let's learn to grow from them' etc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

xp I haven't checked lately, but isn't it equally or even more likely that Platner gets elected but the GOP retains control of the Senate anyway?

yeah no way is this asshole going to drop out

Depends how it goes in TX too.

The best scenario I see atm is for Mills to win via a big election day swing.

Is this really the best scenario, though? To me it sounds like a formula for "she'll lose in a blowout, but at least she was a nice person I could feel good about supporting from afar."

xpost And of course Sherrod Brown (whose ex-wife said in an affidavit that he struck and threatened her) is trying to flip back his old seat in Ohio.

Depends how it goes in TX too.

― The Quaker Gurvitz Army (President Keyes), Friday, June 5, 2026 2:43 PM (three minutes ago)

yeah I looked at a few models (no idea who is trustworthy these days though) and most of them had the Senate at R 50 - D 47 with three toss-ups, though they don't agree on which races are toss-ups lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEi9rugxYcg

I haven't checked lately, but isn't it equally or even more likely that Platner gets elected but the GOP retains control of the Senate anyway?

Yep. They need to flip four seats and not lose any. But Maine is one of the most flippable, so they almost certainly can't do it without that. The Dems' best shot is probably North Carolina, then Maine, and then after that you have Texas, Alaska, Iowa and Ohio. So they pretty much have to win NC and Maine, and then still flip two of those other four, all of which are semi-longshots.

But even in the scenario where they win Maine but not the majority, the Maine seat still matters because that's one fewer they have to try to pick off in '28.

Is this really the best scenario, though? To me it sounds like a formula for "she'll lose in a blowout, but at least she was a nice person I could feel good about supporting from afar."

I don't know. Five more months of talk about Platner's multiplying negatives could have a fairly corrosive effect, there's no guarantee at this point that he's the most electable Dem by November. Whereas Mills' biggest negatives — she's a septuagenarian centrist — are also true of Collins.

Obviously there's no way to really know. But Mills would be bringing a lot less baggage into the general election. And at this point how can anyone think that all the bad Platner stuff is already out there? It's not like reporters will stop looking.

And also I think it's the "best scenario" because Platner doesn't seem like a good dude, and it's better to not have bad dudes in positions of power. Maybe he really has "changed" or whatever, but I feel like maybe he needs to do a lil more work on himself. Not disregarding the extent of his PTSD, I think that's real, but also again maybe not the best formula for being in the national spotlight.

MT is kind of a toss-up at the moment. There's an open seat and the outgoing asshole hand-picked his desired successor in a really slimy way:

Alme is the chosen would-be successor of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, who withdrew from the race minutes before the candidate filing deadline on March 4. Daines then endorsed Alme, who also acquired the incumbent’s campaign staff.

There's also an independent candidate (Seth Bodnar) who's out-fundraising both the Republican and the Democrat, and there are strong rumors now that the Democrat, Alani Bankhead, might drop out and endorse Bodnar.

More about the shape of the race here.

xp thanks tipsy

I saw a poll earlier that Mills has 50% approval as governor. I don't know what went wrong with her primary campaign really, but the idea that she's widely hated doesn't seem quite right. It's hard to find Mills vs. Collins polls that are up to date, but the ones I did see she wasn't doing hugely worse than Platner. And yes above all, the realist/pragmatic argument is weak given this guy's propensity to end up on national TV denying some heinous shit

isn't there a maine thread or something where all this shit can go

lol

THE MAINE MONSTER!

bunch of weirdos

would be nice if the dems could find some non abusers to run

they usually lose

Really unhappy to know that a lot of you are okay with Nazis if they have a D next to their name, but I shouldn't be surprised.

depends on what you mean by "okay with."

and, uh, i guess "Nazis"

Anyone here live in Maine?

I’m cool with Nazis but I draw the line at tattoos.

he was a bartender, the lowest of characters

He's quick with a joke or a light of your smoke

Send Tables to Maine on behalf of ILX as a correspondent to get the man on the street's opinion.

In even more other news-

“If the government decides, very quickly, to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty... nothing can be done?” asked Judge Patricia Millett.

“I think that’s right, yes,” responded DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth

Millett is an Obama appointee. There's also a Biden appointee and a very right-wing Trump appointee hearing this appeals court case

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, questioned whether the plaintiff in the lawsuit, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, had a basis to sue in the first place, especially when set against Trump’s claim that the ballroom would serve as a critical national security bulwark in addition to an event space.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/05/white-house-ballroom-donald-trump-00951892

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/05/white-house-ballroom-donald-trump-00951892

They should bulldoze it

Or paint a clown face on it, at least then it'll be honest.

we must rally behind the fake working class former Blackwater dude with a Nazi tattoo who has abused women and regularly throws around dehumanizing slurs

The Senate is nothing like a governor or the president. In terms of real political outcomes on matters like budgets, immigration, the surveillance state, support of Israel and the Iran war, etc., the worst thing Platner could do as a US Senator from Maine would NOT be secret admiration for Nazis expressed via a tattoo or having a history of working with Blackwater, it would be to vote consistently with the Republicans, which is what Susan Collins already does like clockwork -- because voting on legislation is what the job of Senator boils down to.

How the hell many times have ILXors on these US politics threads identified the Republican Party as a "death cult"? I lost count in 2017. All the accusations leveled against Platner are personal failings. The most obvious failing of Collins is that she unfailingly votes Republican, not that she sports a "death cult" tattoo, but that she is a willing participant in furthering a real functioning death cult. She's directly and provably culpable in all the horrible things being done in our names with our tax money that have wrecked millions of lives. No one can say that about Platner. You want to talk about "red flags", look at her voting record.

Even if you want to believe realpolitik demands that you support the Totenkopf abuser it’s not actually necessary to talk about it here. Or anywhere. Embrace the concept of shame.

Nobody here needs to support him because nobody here lives in Maine afaik.

Embrace the concept of Maine.

Just for fun, can we talk about the fact that the woman who made the most lurid accusations in the Times piece is a career Republican hack who literally worked on Brett Kavanaugh’s PR team? And the reporter who wrote the story won an award from AIPAC? And that there’s no corresponding Times story about Ken Paxton literally letting a child rapist out of prison?

The New York Times is trying to sink Platner, just like they’re trying to sink Hamawy in NJ and Abdul Al-Sayed in Michigan. But the keen political minds of ILX would never fall for transparently dishonest bullshit from hacks with decades-long track records of carrying water for the right. Those of us who support Platner because of his stated policy positions, we’re the problem.

Fwiw the Republican woman who accused Platner thinks the NYT did her dirty and that the story was "a gift to the Platner campaign."

More bullshit/kayfabe intended to keep the story alive via right-wing media who can now combine “Graham Platner is history’s greatest monster!” with “The treacherous liberal media betrays Real America again!” Win-win.