Tipsheet

The New York Times Is Trying to Do Damage Control After the Graham Platner Implosion

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  July 08, 2026 9:30 AM

After the COVID panic waned and people realized just how destructive the lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates were, the Left and its media allies tried to rewrite history, claiming everyone made mistakes, that no one knew just how disastrous lockdowns would be, and that yeah, maybe forced masking wasn't a good idea.

It was epic-level gaslighting, and it should not be tolerated. Nor should the media's attempt to rewrite the history of the Graham Platner campaign, now that the Maine Senate race has descended into absolute chaos.

Many of us warned that Platner was unfit for office from the beginning. His Nazi tattoo, which he wore proudly for years, was alone disqualifying. But the same people who wanted to cancel Elon Musk by claiming his awkward crowd wave was a Third Reich salute were suddenly okay with actual Nazi imagery.

And it only got worse from there. There were the perverted and mean Reddit posts in which Platner proudly said he was a communist, attacked the police, smeared rural voters as racist, and shared his gross sexual proclivities. He urged a teenage girl to commit suicide and wished death on a member of the armed forces who was injured in combat.

Despite that, the Democrats kept endorsing and campaigning with Platner.

Then came the allegations of domestic abuse. Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner years ago, said he was often physical with her, including pulling her out of a taxi cab by her arm and shoving her into a bedroom after twisting her arm behind her back. That was dismissed, too, as a right-wing smear campaign against Platner. Another woman, this time with the 'correct' political leanings, accused Platner of rape earlier this week. Jenny Racicot said Platner entered her house uninvited and forced her to have sex with him.

And that's when things fell apart. But not because Platner had finally crossed some red line for Democrats, but because Democrats realized Platner was losing in Maine. If polls had shown him beating Susan Collins, Democrats would have ignored Racicot's claims, too.

Now The New York Times is trying to do damage control by saying 'everyone' made mistakes in Maine.

Here's more (emphasis added):

The Platner campaign represented an electoral insurgency against the Democratic Party; now, there are going to be furious recriminations against those who launched it. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Most at fault, of course, is Platner himself. He allegedly victimized Racicot, and then his campaign victimized her again, putting her into a situation where she felt she had to go public. He betrayed his supporters by plunging into a campaign while knowing he had a closet full of skeletons and drawing people who believed in him into a doomed enterprise.

Maine Democrats were willing to overlook Platner’s Totenkopf tattoo, his terrible Reddit posts and his sexting with other women while he was married because they felt so invigorated by him and the movement he was creating. They went out on a limb for him, and he had every reason to know it was going to be sawed off.

This is squarely on the Democrats who nominated, campaigned with, endorsed, and made excuses for Platner for months.

Keep this in mind when the Left says they have to beat Susan Collins: she has voted with Democrats in the past. She voted to convict President Trump in his impeachment. She is not this MAGA radical the Left is claiming she is.

Many of us said Platner was bad and unqualified. We were attacked and ignored.

How is it that random people on X knew this, but so-called journalists couldn't figure it out?

This is a clear pattern here.

In the same way, those of us who said Biden was mentally unfit were attacked and dismissed. Jake Tapper flipped out about Biden's 'stutter' and then wrote a book about how his brain was tapioca pudding.

As we said above, if polling and fundraising showed that Platner could beat Collins, none of these allegations, not even the rape allegations, would matter to Democrats. They didn't care about the Nazi tattoo, the gross Reddit posts, or the domestic abuse. And they don't care about the alleged rape, either, even if they pretend to.

All they cared about was beating Susan Collins and flipping the Senate, and they picked the worst possible person to try and accomplish that goal. That's all on them.

The rest of us didn't make a mistake here.