A vote for Platner, in other words, is more than just a vote for a Democratic mirror image of Trump, replete with rank bigotry and phony populism. It’s also a vote against any moderation or independence on either side of the political aisle — which is, ironically, just the way Trump wants our politics to be. Because, when all political choices are strictly binary between MAGA die-hards and progressive die-hards, MAGA will win most of those races.
Frank: In these midterms, Bret, I don’t think we have the luxury of such big-picture, long-term philosophizing. Democratically speaking, it’s do-or-die time, and it’s essential that Trump not have a Congress under Republican control for the final two years of his current term. Sure, Democrats are favored as of now to win the House, but they might not: Look at all the gerrymandering still going on. So they must do everything possible to win the Senate. The Republican Party — to which Collins belongs, no matter her discrete and admirable rebellions — has shown that it cannot be trusted to stand up to Trump. So my relentlessly practical, far-from-jubilant take is that Platner is the better choice.
And, come on, Bret: “Monster”? “Mirror image” of Trump? Isn’t that going just a bit far?
Bret: Let’s conduct a thought experiment and imagine that a Republican Senate candidate had a Nazi-themed tattoo but claimed — as Platner does — that he was unaware of its significance and had gotten it one drunken evening when he was in his 20s. Would Democrats now be giving him a pass? As for his politics, I find progressive populism just as revolting as right-wing populism. But leaving all that aside, I think Platner’s nomination, to quote the old phrase, is “worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.”
Frank: When I say I’d vote for him, Bret, that’s not “giving him a pass.” That phrase — that concept — doesn’t really apply. This is an ugly era of ugly choices. I’m saying that I’m less scared of Platner than of a Congress under Trump’s thumb. That’s really all I’m saying. But if we’re going to talk passes, it’s Trump I refuse to give one.
Bret: I don’t see how voting for someone is somehow not giving him a pass. It reminds me of all of those supposedly normal Republicans who voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton and then bloviated that they had done so “holding their noses.”
