Spectator A.M. #2088

This Platner Scandal Looks Unsurvivable

Jenny Racicot, a woman who had previously accused Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner of misbehavior, now alleges that he sexually violated her in 2021. “Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop,” Politico.com reports. “She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.” Platner, though competitive in polls, flails in the face of numerous scandals that include sexting with women not his wife and tattooing himself with a symbol once used by a German SS unit. In contrast to the earlier controversies, the latest accusation unleashes an existential crisis for his campaign. Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Elizabeth Warren, both heretofore staunch supporters, withdrew endorsements. Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, all called on Platner to drop out. “I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” Racicot told Politico.com. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’” Maine Democrats made their choice a month ago. Now party leaders, as they did two years ago in replacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris, look to overrule that choice. Before that happens, they hope to prevail upon Platner, who denies the allegation, to drop out.

Alone in the Wilderness

Hermit-burglar Christopher Thomas Knight lived alone in the Maine woods for 27 years. Can Graham Platner live off the land for the next 17 weeks isolated from his fellow Democrats? Knight exchanged a “hi” with a hiker once between 1986 and 2013. It seems unlikely now that Platner could provoke even that two-letter response from his fellow Democrats. When Platner spoke of exploring the “best path forward,” it seemed appropriate. He walks no paved roads should he decide to remain in the race. He must, like Christopher Thomas Knight, find the game trails and paths to survive.

Did 1976 Celebrate the Bicentennial Better Than 2026 Celebrated America 250?

The Bee Gees, The Bad News Bears, and bellbottoms were hot in 1976. So was the bicentennial. Why did America 250 not match the patriotic exuberance of 1976’s Fourth of July celebrations? Come explore 1976 v. 2026 in the latest installment of @RightWingWilderness. Trigger warning! References to Buttermaker, Fred Sanford, and “Silly Little Love Songs” abound. Share the YouTube link if you like and subscribe if you have not yet.

Reports of His Retirement Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Nina Totenberg falsely reported the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito late last week. The bias never strikes as so extreme as when the media reports on the media. Left-wing journalists blamed the court rather than the reporter for this error. Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West wrote @ Slate that “what has been grievously missed in the melee is that this is not really a press story at all—it is a story about court transparency and hubris. This mistake reveals an institution that has repeatedly and systemically sidestepped public accountability by making itself impossible to cover by human reporters and, in so doing, has made itself vastly harder to understand by the very public it is meant to serve.” Maybe the 82-year-old Totenberg, and not the 76-year-old Alito, should contemplate retirement in light of this story.

Showdown

State Senator Mallory Morrow dropped out of Michigan’s U.S. Senate race over the weekend. This makes the Democratic primary election even more interesting. Abdul El-Sayed runs with the support of progressives and in support of the Palestinian cause. Representative Haley Stevens calls herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” and receives funding from AIPAC. In 2024, AIPAC played an oversized role in the ousters of Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York from the House of Representatives because of their criticism of Israel. In 2026, AIPAC has become an albatross around the necks of several Democrats. If Stevens can pull off an upset in a cleared field over El-Sayed, then one can maybe chalk up the anti-Israel fervor within the Democratic Party to a few deep-blue districts. If El-Sayed wins, pundits likely add it to a string of anecdotes that buttresses the narrative that the Democratic Party shifts away from its traditional support for Israel toward a position of hostility.

Outclassed

Even an assist from Donald Trump could not much help the United States soccer team last night. Belgium outclassed the United States 4-1 in Seattle. I adopt Spain as my team for the rest of the tournament. Is there a country that you now plan to root for? Note that Senator Mark Kelly wore a Mexico jersey at the England-Mexico game over the weekend and Darializa Avila Chevalier volunteered Senegal as the team she rooted for. So, some Americans traded the U.S. for another nation long before our guys exited the tournament.

Americans Prefer the Real Superman to Comic-Book Supergirl

Young Washington doubled the domestic box-office take of Supergirl this weekend. Moviegoers prefer Washington to woke. Lou Aguilar writes @ The American Spectator: “Premiering a respectful religiously correct biography about the Father of Our Country over America’s 250th birthday weekend would once have been standard operating procedure for a major Hollywood studio. Today, none would even make the film. In their minds, one of the greatest men who ever lived was a white male Christian slaveowner, and the patriarch of a racist colonialist nation supporting genocidal Israel.”