Remember this 2007 innerwebs breaking cri de coeur?
Or maybe you're lucky enough not to.
If you don't here it is anyway [NSFW language warning] to tug at your heartstrings so you know what I'm talking about.
The extraordinary thing is that, while someone could understand going to bat for the horrifically abused Britney Spears - I mean, her truly sad trials and tribulations had been public fodder since her childhood - I'm not quite sure how anyone could be as earnest in their defense of a revolting mass of seething, privileged misogynist anti-social acrimony as the current front-runner for a Maine United States Senate seat.
So far, the man has not a single redeeming quality as a human being. I mean, jeez, there's not been a single decent altruistic act, even, that his defenders can cite.
It's all excuses and cries of 'Why can't these mean people leave Graham Platner alone?'
I remember when I used to think Michael Tracey was semi-lucid.
Then I got an Unherd email this morning with this subject line, which is how the Britney meme sprang immediately to my early morning brain.
Michael Tracey on the smearing of Graham Platner
'Smearing' scumbag Graham Platner?
VURT DA FURK?
How does one 'smear' something that is already a poo-encrusted stain?
Now I remember why I don't read him at all anymore. I am delighted a paywall saved my hard-earned dollars from being spent on paying Tracey for this whimsical, squeaky-clean fantasy trip into the Platner campaign.
The hollow ‘accusation’ campaign targeting Graham Platner
Whatever happened to evidence?
Graham Platner’s campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine can come across as pretty rote — mostly just reheated Bernie Sanders mantras. It’s hardly surprising that many in the Maine Democratic electorate would be receptive to such messaging. What’s slightly more notable is that Platner, a previously unknown Marine veteran and oyster farmer, is the vehicle for that message in a race that could decide control of the Senate in this year’s midterms. He easily warded off a listless challenge from the incumbent Democratic governor, Janet Mills; the mostly uncontested Dem primary is now days away.
And so, right on cue, here come the “accusations.”
What are these “accusations”? Good question. “Accusations” would seem to overstate the case, because it’s exceedingly unclear what Platner is even being accused of doing. But since the non-accusatory accusations have been dramatically unveiled by the The New York Times, all keen political watchers must now hold their breath and brace for the fallout.
Tracey's first paragraph is a remarkable piece of rewriting history. I won't use the term 'whitewash' as I am sure that would trigger someone.
Platner's Maine campaign has been, basically, a boring rehash of 'reheated Bernie Sanders mantras' which, to Tracey, easily explains his appeal to Democratic Mainers.
Oysterfarmer, veteran, check.
Nazi tattoo?
Reddit rape, 'guy shoulda died,' bathroom towel pic on a teen site, anything?
Um...dancing bare-chested in his underdrawers at family weddings?
Lust for blood?
Anything remotely off-kilter attributed directly to Platner through his own words and deeds?
Nary a hint.
Straight to 'why is this everyman being subjected to (as Tracey puts it):
...a New York Times enterprise project to canvass Platner’s ex-girlfriends, already a creepy enough initiative in its own right ...
GOSH, MICHAEL, I DUNNO...WHY?!
The subject of the Reddit posts eventually pops up, but it takes all the way to paragraph 12. They are merely described as 'recently discovered,' and that's it.
The oh, so sly Mr. Tracey doesn't tell you what has been documented as Mr. Platner's own words IN THEM, because, gosh, darn, that would be the evidence Mr. Tracey says he doesn't have.
The paragraph then becomes an exercise in foisting the responsibility onto one of the subjects of the NYT piece for complaining that, to her regret, she'd stuck with Platner to begin with, even though documented texts from friends at the time (Is this 'evidence' again?) told her to dump the creepster for good.
...Seeing his recently discovered archive of Reddit posts, she claims, has “reminded me of just how much he hated women.” Left unexplained is why she apparently dated someone who “hated women” for two years. Or why, after the relationship apparently broke off by 2016, friends sent texts encouraging her to “move on,” implying that she was disinclined to “move on.” Nor do the Times sleuths probe whether her apparent knowledge that Platner was simultaneously seeing other women during their relationship might have been a key factor in generating her negative feelings toward him. Or what she precisely meant in a post-breakup diary entry, purportedly shown to the reporters, in which she wrote that Platner was “the most toxic literally abusive man on earth who destroyed my life.”
'Left unexplained' is why Mr. Tracey left unexamined what was in the 'recently discovered' Reddit posts.
Mr. Tracey is, so far, the only person I have heard or read who found those vile scribblings to be so completely devoid of interest that he couldn't be bothered to find relevance in a single one. Not a quote to be had in Platner's own words.
Peculiar.
Should he ever have lost his writing gig, Tracey probably could have been a surgeon. Maybe stitched up cut fingers on the side, or spent it taking the nads off of stray cats for a couple of extra bucks.
The excisions to form this narrative hit piece are masterful and ruthless.
The 'supposed Nazi tattoo' finally makes its appearance by paragraph 16.
Again, according to Mr. Tracey's telling of the sanitized Platner tale, it's the kinda sorta thing any gooberish military type in his 20s would get - something I am sure Mr. Tracey is an expert on.
Again, it's Ms. Fifield's fault for being a war iconography specialist who did not realize she was dating a simple country Nazi-loving goober boy.
...Speaking of the supposed “Nazi tattoo” that is now said to be a singularly defining mark of Platner’s allegedly foul character, it seems rather doubtful that a great many of his fellow Marines circa 2007 — when Platner says he got the tattoo while on leave in Croatia — would have been steeped enough in esoteric pagan iconography to identify the symbol as intrinsically linked with National Socialism. Because to the naked eye, it could easily just appear like a generic “skull and crossbones” symbol that a certain type of military guy in his early 20s would probably think looks cool. Perhaps going forward, all US service personnel should be required to consult the Anti-Defamation League’s “hate-symbols” database before they ink themselves with anything improper. Better yet, they can fax their proposed tat design to Susan Collins for pre-approval.
SOMEBODY MIGHTA TOLD SOMEBODY, BUT NOBODY TOLD ME
Chris Hayes: How is it that your ex-girlfriend was texting people that you had a Nazi tattoo in August but you didn't know until October?
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) June 5, 2026
Graham Platner: They didn't tell me that pic.twitter.com/pEHIAZJY0r
See?
That's good enough for the Traceys of the world.
(Not for my Boss, though. He knows who told who what when...)
*slobber slobber slobber* ~ Michael Tracey
Hey! What's this now?
Is his theory of the case that Lyndsey knew all along it was a Totenkopf, but he did not. And she never informed him, and held this information, for what? The outside chance he’d run for Senate and she could reveal it 15-20 yrs later?
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) June 5, 2026
LEAVE GRAHAM PLATNER ALONE, YOU BASTARDS!!!!
While Democrats and progressives are left weeping for the innocence lost that is the precious Graham Platner, they are experiencing amounts of copium never before witnessed in modern politics.
Witness Congressman Ro Khanna, on his way even now to a 'You, GO, Graham!' campaign event in Maine.
GRAHAM HAS ACKNOWLEDGED...AND SOUGHT REDEMPTION
Ro Khanna has become Graham Platner's Truest Believer, bless his heart. https://t.co/a8p2YGYNaE
— Sister Toldjah 💙 (@sistertoldjah) June 5, 2026
Kamala Harris' former deputy campaign manager better get on the Graham bus, Gus, or he won't work in this town again.
Sorry, I just found his denials of everything to be so categorical as to be unbelievable and it actually made me even more worried that this won't be the end of it. https://t.co/TvWg5gjWjh
— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) June 5, 2026
GRAHAM, GRAHAM, HE'S OUR...gulp...BARE CHESTED, TATTOOED MAN!!
Chuck Schumer is ruing the day he married himself to Graham Platner and the AOC Elizabeth Warren wing of nutballs. 🤣🍿
— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) June 5, 2026
Cannot escape it now.
Credit: @RuthlessPodcast pic.twitter.com/XglIMe1iAy
To beat the nice, soft-spoken little old Maine lady with.
Democrats.
Fetterman's not playing along, go figure, and he's pretty hilarious about it because he don't give a flyin' hockey puck.
Sen. John Fetterman when asked about Graham Platner, he said who P hustle? The reporter with a puzzled and perturbed look on her face replied: is that what you call him Fetterman replied: no that’s what he calls himself. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/fldmX2keft
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) June 5, 2026
Meanwhile...
Well wait til they get ahold of Michael Tracey's Platner tongue bath in Unherd.
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) June 5, 2026
The slime is so thick, defending him, you can barely read thru it
gasp...gulp...sniffle
LEAVE GRAHAM PLATNER ALONE, YOU BASTARDS!
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