As a Black voter, Graham Platner’s ethics don’t bother me — my people can’t afford to wait for a perfect candidate
A series of recent disclosures exposed the dark side of the Democratic Senate candidate from Maine. But they were not enough to cost him in the primary election — and that’s a good thing.
As a lifelong Democrat, I’m often exhausted by my party’s hand-wringing when it comes to the question of ethics.
I certainly believe moral clarity is important. We should all seek to embrace a firm set of values. However, when it comes to politics, morality is often a mirage, and Democrats spend far too much time pretending it’s not.
Perhaps that’s why I was encouraged by Graham Platner’s win in the Maine Democratic Senate primary. Platner presented himself as a rugged everyman who happened to be a progressive. However, a series of disclosures exposed Platner’s dark side.
He wore a tattoo that resembled a Nazi death’s head symbol, but claimed he didn’t know what it represented.
He sent sexually charged text messages to women, a fact his campaign confirmed.
Several ex-girlfriends accused him of disturbing behavior, including one who said he forcefully grabbed her more than once. In response, Platner described himself as a “bad boyfriend,” but denied physically abusing women.
These allegations, along with old Reddit posts that some described as racist and sexist, were not enough to cost him the election, and in my view, that’s a good thing.
As a Black man in Trump’s America, I can’t afford to wait for the perfect candidate. Nor can I expect politicians to live on a higher moral plane. My people are being targeted by an administration that seems hell-bent on returning us to the age of Jim Crow, and at a time like this, we cannot waste a second playing holier than thou.
We are literally watching a president with 34 criminal convictions treat the U.S. Constitution as a suggestion, so we don’t need choirboys. We need U.S. senators and representatives who will stand up to Donald Trump.
We are literally watching a president with 34 criminal convictions treat the U.S. Constitution as a suggestion, so we don’t need choirboys.
For that reason, Platner’s background is less important to me than his ability to fight against racist policies. Could he turn out to be a John Fetterman — pretending to support Democrats while voting with Trump on important issues? Yes, he could, but while Platner might target Black people, Republicans are already doing so.
With Trump in the White House and GOP majorities in the House, the Senate, and the U.S. Supreme Court, anti-diversity efforts are raging. Black congressional districts are being eliminated, and the Trump administration is using antidiscrimination laws against the very people they were meant to protect.
In my view, MAGA was never solely about stopping undocumented immigrants from entering the country, because, contrary to right-wing conspiracy theories, undocumented people cannot vote.
African Americans, however, are among the Democratic Party’s most loyal demographics. We have the power to sway national elections, and we tend to use that power against Trump.
In 2016, 94% of Black voters cast ballots against Trump, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2020, 92% voted against him. In 2024, 83% voted against him.
Some pundits say the shift means Trump is making inroads with Black voters. I believe the opposite is true. Democrats are losing us.
When Black people come face-to-face with bread-and-butter issues like food insecurity and unaffordable healthcare, we don’t want to hear about studies by Ivy League scholars. We don’t want a doctoral thesis on poverty. We want solutions, and Democrats spend far too much time explaining problems rather than solving them.
Even worse, my party is frequently consumed with constructing ethical obstacle courses that few candidates can navigate. Maybe that was cute back in the day, when you could lose the election and still count on guardrails to restrain the other side. Those guardrails are gone now, and while my party’s white elites can afford to theorize about the link between government and racism, I can’t.
Racism is not a theory for Black people. It is a daily reality, and it plays out through systems that flourish when conservatives take power.
Therefore, we must not bind ourselves by seeking perfect candidates. Instead, we must seek to free ourselves by uniting and fighting to win.
