“No one, whether you’re trans or not, wants the federal government digging through your identifiable patient information and figuring out what they like and don’t like,” Hack said. “It’s an absolute overreach, and people are really scared.”
Asked whether Hack’s priorities were measures he could support, Platner agreed. “Yes, indeed. They most certainly do,” he said.
Nah, they’ll ignore him once he’s in office. Because his personal life won’t matter anymore. If he actually follows through on being progressive and anti war they’ll basically ignore him like they have anything positive related to Mamdani.
There’s always a handful of Congresscritters who become the fixation of media monstering campaigns. AOC, Cori Bush, and Ilhan Omar have been popular whipping girls for nearly a decade. Ted Cruz and Louise Gohmert were another pair of jokers the DC media loved to clown on. Platner is exactly the kind of guy you’ll see written about in some Op-Ed or Style Guide, where the professional Mean Girls Club of pundits plaster catty smears masquerading as serious think pieces.
Ross Douthat will be putting up an article every month about how Jesus Wept over the Maine election process. Maggie Haberman will be doing think pieces titled “Does a Senator Beat His Wife?” the first time Platner and Amy Gertner express diverging views in public. We’re going to get an Israeli flag background image behind some WaPo piece about New England anti-semitism, fixating on the worst five Platner voters the paper can find.
He’ll be in a single-digit minority voting pool most of his career. Which is to his credit. Gotta start somewhere. But the Senate is a naturally reactionary and deeply genocidal institution by design. I hope he wins, but I doubt he’ll do more with his time in office than put up a bunch of angry protest votes.