The Standard Cannot Be “Better Than Susan Collins”

Graham Platner should suspend his campaign

On Monday, Politico published an account from Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident who dated Graham Platner on and off from 2019 to 2021. She alleges that in late 2021 he entered her home uninvited while intoxicated and forced her to have sex as she repeatedly told him to stop.

Politico interviewed her three times over two weeks. Reporters also spoke with a man she confided in during the years after the alleged assault, and reviewed emails between Racicot and her therapist, along with messages in which she warned an acquaintance about Platner years before he ever ran for office.

My thoughts are with the survivors, and with every person who understands what it costs to make their pain public. Speaking out in these circumstances means risking scrutiny, retaliation, disbelief, and being turned into a talking point by people who have no interest in your humanity. If that is you, and you are reading this, I see you. This piece is written with you in mind.

Platner denies the allegation. He calls it “categorically untrue,” and his campaign says the encounter was consensual. His campaign also says the story was coordinated by out-of-state operatives, and points to its timing, one week before Maine’s ballot deadline. You should read the reporting yourself. The account, the corroboration, and the denial.

Racicot spoke to The New York Times last month. She described Platner’s behavior then as reckless and unsettling, and said nothing about an assault. According to the Politico reporting, she came forward with the full account only after watching the conversation around that Times story collapse into a debate about another accuser’s Republican ties instead of what the accuser actually said. She watched a survivor get turned into a talking point. Then she stepped forward anyway.

Graham Platner should suspend his campaign.

Platner won his primary in June with more than 70 percent of the vote. He beat a sitting governor. A lot of good people in Maine put their hope in him because he talked like someone who understood their lives. That hope was real, but it’s no longer the question.

If Platner withdraws by 5:00pm on July 13th, the Maine Democratic Party can replace him on the ballot. Mainers would still have a nominee. They would still have a race. What they would no longer have is a choice between their values and their vote.

You have read here my Susan Collins accountability series for months. I have written about her healthcare votes, her ICE funding votes, her procedural cover for a bill that hurt Maine families. I want that seat flipped as much as anyone writing about politics right now. And the standard still cannot be “better than Susan Collins.” The question is simpler and harder: can this person be trusted with power?

Because here is what authoritarianism actually is — it is domination. It is control, silence, coercion. It is power protecting itself, without conscience. And we cannot build an anti-authoritarian movement by asking women, survivors, and marginalized people to absorb harm in the name of winning.

Our values are foundational. They do not crumble when struck by power. Either accountability applies when it is politically inconvenient, or it was never a value. It was a weapon we pointed at our enemies.

Survivors are not collateral damage in anyone’s fight for political power. Bodily autonomy means freedom from interpersonal violence and freedom from political violence, and those are the same fight. Harm cannot be excused because the polling looks good. Voters deserve a candidate they can organize for without compromising their morals. No exceptions. We cannot ask people to knock doors for bodily autonomy, gender justice, and freedom from state violence while telling survivors that accountability is optional if the accused is on our side.

And to the argument that saying this out loud “helps the right”: ignoring harm helps the right. It proves their favorite claim, that everyone’s values are disposable when power is on the line. The most powerful thing Maine Democrats can do this week is prove that claim wrong.

There is still time for Mainers to choose a leader who can stand against violence in public policy and in personal conduct. There is still time to hold the line and hold the seat. Those were never in conflict.

Pretending they are is a choice.

---

The Dad Briefs covers the civic, political, and quietly human stories that shape family life in America — with recipes along the way. Food, Fun and Fatherly Wisdom. Recipes for Resistance.