‘Ragebait’ turns Graham Platner’s flaws into winners — with help from GOP critics

If the Devil couldn’t manage to convince the world he didn’t exist, his next best bet would be to pitch himself to its inhabitants as a relatable rogue.

In Maine, Republicans are ready to pop the champagne over the seemingly endless stream of scandals hanging over Graham Platner’s Senate campaign.

Over the weekend, Platner tacked infidelity — he apparently sent explicit messages to as many as a dozen women and operated an account on Kik, a platform notorious for hosting child sex predators — onto his ever-expanding list of obscene acts.

That list includes his emblazoning a Nazi tattoo across his chest, rape victim-shaming, mockery of a Purple Heart veteran, praise for Hamas, disparagement of rural Mainers and affinity for pleasuring himself in porta-potties.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln?

Still, Platner remains a viable candidate — not just in spite of, but because of his personal defects.

After all, we’re living in the age of ragebait, where incendiary acts, words and people are used to elicit a hostile reaction that the offending party can, paradoxically, exploit for its own purposes.

Because where some see a destructive denizen of the drunk tank, others see a flawed man on a redemption arc perfectly suited for success in today’s polarized, distrustful politics.

Flaws weaponized

In his 2014 book “The Revolt of the Public,” Martin Gurri described how elites’ mismanagement of their prestigious posts and the digital revolution had conspired to create an unbridgeable gap between laymen and those in power — and thereby “a gigantic erosion of trust in the institutions” manned by the latter.

The result? A fractured information environment that cynical, self-interested actors can take advantage of.

It’s in this context that Platner and his top adviser Morris Katz — a Zohran Mamdani campaign alum — have found a way to not just weather the candidate’s moral failings, but weaponize them.

By flooding the zone with a metric ton of deflections, counternarratives and outright lies, Platner has developed, if not the Teflon for which Donald Trump has become famous, something like it.

Take Team Platner’s response to the reporting on his towel-clad romp through Kik.

His campaign confirmed the veracity of the reporting on his atrocious behavior.

But when the candidate himself was asked about it, he mused that “it’s no surprise to me that the establishment media outlets are just gonna run gossip,” and accused both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times of committing “journalistic malpractice.”

Huh?

Meanwhile, Platner’s campaign account released a video from his poor wife in which she decried the “extra s–tty” stories about their marriage — that’s the “shameful behavior” she identified in all this.

Katz picked up that ball and ran with it.

Here’s the latest on lefty Senate candidate Graham Platner’s sexting scandal

• Graham Platner backed out of MS Now interview as sexting scandal erupted, anchor claims
• Embattled Dem Senate candidate’s wife stands by her man in sexting scandal — after his campaign paid her $30K
• Embattled Dem Senate candidate breaks silence on sexting scandal – with his wife glued to his side
• Cory Booker admits he has concerns about Graham Platner after sexting scandal: ‘Guy has questions to answer’

“It’s no one’s f–king business what happened in Graham & Amy’s marriage before he was ever a candidate for office,” he raged on X.

‘Man of the people’

As risible as all the conflicting and logically tortured messaging might be, there’s a sort of twisted genius to it.

The playbook goes something like this.

Pick a candidate with a gravelly voice, a beard and a checkered past who you can cast as a man of the people, an outsider with his finger on the pulse of everyday Americans.

Ragebait the media and the opposing party into breathlessly covering every last one of the evidently countless sordid tales about your hero.

Throw as many excuses, explanations, distractions and outright lies at the wall as possible.

And then profit.

Because in the era of pick-your-own-reality media consumption and mass misgivings about one another, the ceaseless condemnations of Platner can actually redound to his benefit in four important ways.

One, they play perfectly into his “outsider everyman” schtick.

Despite his humble oyster-farmer act, Platner is actually a privileged man, from a privileged family, living a privileged life.

By calling attention to his indiscretions, Platner’s enemies have actually added color and depth to the character he’s playing.

So what if he’s a little rough around the edges? He’s real.

As Katz put it during a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event: “How are we going to win back the young men who we’ve lost online? It’s like, you know what? We have someone who was one of them.”

Better to roll with the normie whose faults are out in the open than with the smooth, slick-talking politician concealing his own.

Two, while Platner professes to want to talk policy, it’s actually his greatest vulnerability on the campaign trail.

Platner is a Marxist with Peak Woke views on just about every social issue you can imagine.

Maine is only a light blue state and Platner will face off against Sen. Susan Collins, the single most moderate member of Congress’ upper chamber, in November’s general election.

He may be on solid footing when he’s railing against Trump or the economic roadblocks standing in the way of his would-be constituents.

But not so much when he’s forced to acknowledge the cost of his socialist agenda — or his support for men’s participation in women’s sports.

Better to sell his invented persona than his ideas.

Recognition & funding

Three, the wall-to-wall coverage of Platner’s campaign has turned him into a national figure.

Not only does everyone know who he is — typically an enormous hurdle that a challenger to an incumbent must overcome — he’s become a fundraising juggernaut.

After all, it was his cash advantage that compelled his Democratic primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, to step aside.

Candidates need facetime and cash to win; Platner’s domination of news cycle after news cycle allowed him to accrue both.

Four, it’s helped him capitalize on the rampant negative polarization — that is, a contempt for the other side that outweighs one’s affection for their own — that’s come to define American politics.

“The messier Platner turns out to be, the more I hope he wins,” declared David Klion of The Nation over the weekend.

“Not because I like or respect him more, but because Susan Collins, one of the most evil people in public life, deserves to be humiliated as much as possible.”

For an increasing number of political revanchists, the garment-rending on the other side isn’t a bug, but a feature of a certain kind of candidate.

Right-wing outrage over Platner only deepens the loyalty his left-wing base feels for him.

GOP falling for trap

Trump has long benefited from the other side of this coin — and not just among his most fervent supporters.

Democrats’ Trump Derangement Syndrome and Boy Who Cried Wolf Complex has driven many persuadable voters into his camp over the years.

Now, Republicans risk doing the same with Platner.

Especially in a midterm election cycle in which the Democrats have the wind at their backs.

To be sure, Platner’s sins could cost him the seat he’s seeking — look no further than the ruins of Eric Swalwell’s career for evidence that everyone draws the line somewhere.

Republicans seem to be hoping so: Collins is keeping her powder dry as Platner’s negatives accumulate, seemingly trusting the general electorate to demonstrate their good sense in November and reject him for his multiple mortal sins.

But given the fraught and fractured state of American politics, that’s a risky bet.

So Platner’s Republican opponents ought not rely on the shock factor alone to carry the day.

Because by clamping down so hard on every last piece of his campaign’s ragebait, they may only be helping the Devil don his insidious disguise.

Isaac Schorr is a senior editor at Mediaite.