The New Yorker’s Jon Alsop thinks that comparisons of the two — i.e., that “the left’s embrace of him has evinced a similarly troubling dynamic that rationalizes away obvious character flaws in the name of beating a greater evil” — are lazy:
Sure, [Platner] is capable of speaking with some of the same accents—not least when attacking the media or the motives of his accusers—and is a controversial neophyte riding a wave of anger at the status quo. These days, though, Trump is the status quo, and the Democratic base seems concerned, above all, with fighting this reality, not aping it. In part, Platner’s enduring appeal, especially through the Reddit and tattoo controversies, clearly did reflect an overdue reckoning with whether character-based purity tests are tenable—or even desirable—in the present political climate. But I see this reckoning less as a liberal analogue to the Trumpian permission slip for awful behavior, and more as an outgrowth of frustration about a consultant-driven politics that presents candidates as beyond reproach, then throws them to the wolves when they prove to be imperfect. Platner’s campaign has often had an angry edge, but, as I wrote last month, his rhetoric was frequently softer, especially when it came to his past indiscretions; he has used a language of therapy, self-improvement, and belonging which it is almost impossible to imagine coming out of Trump’s mouth, or his Truth Social account. If Platner survived the Times story about his exes, then that may primarily be because some of the allegations therein were murky, and the worst of them were plausibly consistent with Platner’s tale of personal growth. In a party that has long been disgusted by Trump’s impunity and has recently become obsessed with the Epstein files—a topic that Platner himself prominently invoked—an outright claim of sexual assault was always likely to form a bright line. All the early evidence suggests that Platner will not be able to step over it and stay alive.
He also agrees that Democrats should not ignore Platner’s strengths and the meaning of his campaign’s success:
When I wrote about Platner last month, it was through the lens—or, more accurately, two different lenses—of authenticity. The first examined the common, superficial application of the term to politics (and, yes, electability), according to which the image of Platner—a gruff, tattooed, legibly working-class outsider—initially appeared as a godsend, only to be undermined by the slow, likely fatal unveiling of his painfully real flaws. ([Troy] Jackson is a logger from Trump country, and, inevitably, has already been described as authentic.) The second lens looked at a yearning, among voters, for true connection and meaning—and for change—in an alienating, disconcerting world of political corruption, consolidated corporate power, and the threat of A.I.-enforced obsolescence. Platner—bearing the scars of his post-9/11 military service and the financial crisis—tapped into this idea. As Morris Katz, a Platner adviser and progressive strategist, told Politico last year, he “embodies the trauma of a country that lost its way.”
Katz and others who helped to recruit Platner have since taken heat for not adequately vetting him in advance; they certainly failed to foresee the likely destructive impact of the intense personal trauma that follows him around, both his own and that of other people. Whatever the immediate consequences of that failure, the more symbolic trauma to which Katz spoke—which Beltway pundits baffled by Platner’s enduring popularity seemed consistently to misunderstand, or to miss entirely—will persist, and continue to find political expression. Platner’s rise and probable fall shows that character still matters, but that it isn’t the sole organizing principle of politics these days, on either side. His primary-night suggestion that he would not be defined by a single killer headline has not aged well. And yet his insistence that his campaign wasn’t really about him, however self-serving, contains more than a seed of truth.
