My thinking has evolved since Clinton’s presidency. At the time, I thought his affair with Monica Lewinsky showed uncharacteristic lack of judgment on his part. Her youth and infatuation with him made it almost certain she would confide in at least one person; he should have chosen someone with a little more discretion.
But in retrospect, I believe Clinton chose Lewinsky because of her youth and her crush on him, not in spite of those things. The power imbalance turned him on. He didn’t succumb to temptation; he succumbed to a lifelong addiction to adoration from women. In doing so, he victimized Monica Lewinsky. He has never taken responsibility for the wreck he made of her life, because he believes his only sin was infidelity.
Al Franken I’ve had spirited arguments with fellow liberals about what happened to Al Franken. They were enraged with Kristin Gillibrand because Al Franken was an ass grabber with an adolescent sense of humor who happened to also be a good senator. No one seems to remember that Tina Smith is also a good senator. Here’s the other thing I thought at the time about Franken, and still (at least partly) believe: If Democrats are going to hold the moral high ground, we have to be consistent. Al Franken was a sacrifice we had to make. Sure, his transgressions were minor compared to those of Roy Moore or Donald Trump. But we can’t condemn Republicans for being sex pests while giving a pass to our own.
That said, I think Graham Platner is probably a dick. I’m glad I’m not married to him. I don’t think he’s a Nazi, but the kind of troglodyte, misogynist views he expressed on Reddit don’t magically evolve when one decides to run for office. Recent revelations about Platner’s lackadaisical approach to marital fidelity, along with his defensive, non responsive reaction to those revelations, convince me he’s probably not a good guy.
But if I lived in Maine, I’d vote for him. In 2026, we can no longer afford to sacrifice a handsy Al Franken or condemn a predatory Bill Clinton. We maintain the moral high ground only by stopping at least some of Donald Trump’s madness. If that means electing Platner and placating John Fetterman and a thousand other humiliations, that’s what we have to do. Thom Tillis is my senator and I despise him, but if I’m Chuck Schumer I’m buying his lunch every day from now until January.
Good lord, this is long. Thanks, Stephen, for an inspiring, beautifully written piece.
I’ll admit I despised Clinton while he was president mostly because I found him generally dishonest. At the same time I thought his affairs were a personal matter with nothing to do with his job (though preying on Lewinsky and Jones was troubling, and I thought as I do now that presidents should not be immune from prosecution for criminal acts or civil actions).
The Platner stuff—it just seems very weak as far as scandals go. So he posted a lot of dumb shit online—is that it? Did his explanation satisfy you? I just get the feeling after a decade of Trump we’ve been broken from caring about such scandals.
I thought Bill was an asshole. I think Trump is an asshole.
Bill was, however, mostly competent. He was still human. Flawed, but human.
It should go without saying, but if evidence emerged that he assaulted a child with Epstein came to light, I'd want him to rot in prison for the rest of his life.
Bill also helped kick off the Third Way, which I think hurt the nation and Democrats.
Trump is a walking bag of vice and sin. No humanity at all. And he's bad at every job he's had aside from theft.
I agree with you. Sexual promiscuity was only one part of the Bill Clinton whole, and most people decided it wasn’t the most important one when deciding how to vote. It’s a decision not unique to him, either. Voters in various parts have been faced with it many times and by and large have made the same decision. Europeans don’t even blink.
Trump’s issues are different. Were he a competent administrator who ran the trains on time and seemed to care about something other than enriching and aggrandizing himself, no one would care about the “grab ‘em by the pussy” shit, crass as it is. There’s also the difference between sleeping with Gennifer Flowers or Marla Maples and bedding a 16 year old on Epstein Island
I'm glad I don't live in Maine, I don't want that vote on my conscience. I do fully expect him to be a Fetterman if he gets in though. To paraphrase someone on bluesky "he's got the kind of red flags voters usually ignore a qualified black woman for"
Fetterman does make some dumb shit votes (MARKWAYNE???) but yes he’s overall still better than a Republican especially as caucusing with Democrats alone means one vote closer to controlling the floor and committees which is the most importantly thing considering the way the Senate runs.
Generally one can get lots of clout by slamming Bill Clinton in the Democratic Party, so even then he isn't revered like the Republicans revere their leader. And Hillary Clinton got to pay for Bill's sins (as did we all.) Given the lefty discourse about Platner that kinda echoes handwaving of Fetterman's sketchy past, I just say they got the wheel. My hands are off. I am not in Maine so what can I even say? Just hope we don't get burned by the Cotham-Fetterman Effect.
I am in Maine, and a lot of people are acting as if Platner has the race in hand already. I can’t stress enough that Susan Collins is a powerful force in this state and I will believe her time has come when she is giving a concession speech. She’s Alex Forrest in that regard.
I'm glad I don't have to have that vote on my conscience. I do think there's some blame to be hurled at Schumer though. The best he could (or would) scout out for a candidate was mills, which feels more like him giving the progressive wing a middle finger than anything else.
That’s the rub—if Platner is such a disaster, why the hell couldnt the establishment come up with a better alternative than Mills who was also damaged and uninterested in running? Where’s the JV squad? What a farce.
I have no idea but as nobody is challenging Schumer in office I am sure the progressives are hiding behind him having to make shitty decisions so they can protect their progressive branding.
It’s depressing because American politics is depressing. But in my case I can’t afford to look away because my existence as a Black American is inherently political. And accordingly it actually is an existential necessity for me for Democrats to exist.
Congress is deliberately broken by Newt Gingrich. None of the LBJ-style solutions work in a post-Gingrich Congress, because we have two different operating principles. Democrats have to remain yoked to reality and having to persuade people to DO things (legislation, statute).
Republicans just need to take up space and say no. Entropy is their best friend. This is why so many of their representatives are essentially social media influencers. They don’t do a damn thing all day. People like Coach Shouty for example don’t do a damn thing to help the actual needs of the district. He just gums up the works so that unreconstructed state-based regimes of terror can wild out.
Yeah. A large part of the seething rage I have for the Democrats is that we need them because of how broken our fucking politics are.
Incidentally, regarding your point about newt breaking Congress (which is entirely correct), that's why I'm in favor of Republican disenfranchisement. They don't want to have a government at all, so why the fuck should they get a voice in the government they want to break? It's like giving a tumor a say in its chemotherapy regimen.
They sadly get a voice because they represent the unreconstructed, who have outsized political power by design in the USA. When we remember that the United States exists because it was necessary to mollify immoral slavers and the non-owners who benefited from the profit from slave labor, this all makes sense.
Republicans get that voice because the rural planter class needs to suppress the cities that harbor the minorities they hate. Leveraging their hate benefits the uber-wealthy…same as it ever was.
Trump is horrible at any job and this especially so. However raping girls and a young of age woman willingly drawn into a married man’s charm are two very different things (I don’t think anyone argues with that).
It points to a very different danger in that it’s clear he will lie, cheat and steal at any given or taken chance.
trump is indeed trash - in his personal life and in his public life. As for Platner, it remains to be seen if he will be better in his public life than in his private life. If I lived in Maine, I would have a hard time voting for him, but who else is there at this point? Yes, Clinton was a sleaze in his private life, but much better in his public life. In the long run, would it have been better if Dems had thrown him under the bus for being a private sleaze? I don't know. However, there is no doubt that trump is the worst of humanity, and the country is paying a heavy price for his weakness, evil, and sleaze. There is nothing redeeming about him.
I’ve never been one to base a vote on what my grandmother would have called “tomcatting around”-as long as kids or coercion weren’t involved I didn’t much care and still don’t. Neither, apparently, do most prominent spouses of well known adulterers, including Hillary Clinton (gotta hand it to Ken Paxton’s wife in that regard). Lots of well known tomcats in history who did amazing things, like MLK Jr and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We’ve always taken the good with the bad in that respect. Adultery is a bipartisan failing.
The one undeniable factor in Platner's favor: he was the one who stood up and ran for the office loudly and proudly. Mill's entry felt like a panicked centrist response.
She apparently bowed to pressure as a candidate who has won two statewide races, but it was clear from day one she didn't want the job and agreed to run because she is the definition of party loyalist. Low energy doesn't begin to describe her since-abandoned campaign. For people mad about Platner, well, blame Chuck Schumer. His pressuring Mills meant that when she entered the race, the sea parted and any other Dem who might have been interested begged off or is now running for governor.
Yeah, it's hard for me to respect a mainstream Dem who could have beaten Collins standing down because running for governor was "easier." My in-box is flooded with "democracy is at stake" fundraising emails but no one but Platner was truly willing to step into the breach?
Well, I don't think they backed off necessarily because it was easier, although it probably is-even a weakened Collins is a tough draw for anyone. They backed off because the national party had decided they wanted the "electable" Mills to be the nominee (ala Hillary Clinton in 2016). It was tin eared and IMO Exhibit A in the case against current Dem leadership who insist on looking at the political landscape and judging candidates as if it were still 1992. Janet Mills is almost 80 years old and her popularity has sagged, as is the wont of 2nd term governors-Democrats here respect and appreciate what she has done but we are ready to move on. Graham Platner may not be everyone's cup of tea, but one thing he has proven is that he is not afraid of a fight and that is a tremendously salient characteristic for Democrats and independents sick and tired of the Jared Polises of the world, who would rather protect their positions than fight back. I expect Maine Dems to stick by him and I expect he will give Susan Collins a real run for her money in a way no one else has. I'm not predicting a Platner victory-I know Susan Collins' position too well for that. But Janet Mills *definitely* would not have beat her, any more than did the string of respectable and well vetted candidates we've put up against her for 30 years now. The old formula doesn't work. The voting populace is dying for something besides warmed over, focus-grouped respectability that talks pretty but does nothing. It's time to try something different.
Count me as one lifelong Democrat who wanted Bill Clinton to resign. I found both his willingness to betray his wife, as well as his willingness to abuse his position of power, as disqualifying. As Stephen accurately describes, it was part of the long slide toward total partisanship in national politics, where character became subordinated to winning.
As much as I would like to see Susan Collins driven from office, and to see the Democrats resume control of the senate, Platner has shown himself for what he is, and I would find it impossible to vote for him. His errors of judgement portend even more to come.
I get the argument that Democrats holding their candidates to higher standards while Republicans ignore the personal failures of theirs is a losing proposition. But I hate hypocrisy more than I despise the current GOP. To be clear, I thought that driving Al Franken from office for some silly jokes was crazy, and it only reinforced the whole purity pony concept for Democrats. But some behavior is not acceptable, and Platner's behavior that indicates a lack of consistent character is the deal killer for me.
That’s one other thing—Clinton resigning would have meant President Gore running for reelection with an incumbent advantage and likely beating Bush handily, plus being able to distance himself from Clinton’s gross behavior towards women (which didn’t help the credibility of feminist organizations that rallied to him for things they’d have scorched Republicans over). Was it worth it to circle the wagons for Clinton? I did think the GOP impeachment was stupid but resignation would have helped his party.
One irony is that Democrats largely internalized the lesson of the Clinton years: what a politician can accomplish for “your side” is often more important than what they do or say in their personal life. That's easy to forget because the Clinton scandals are now more than 30 years in the past, (even if many of the people who still dominate American politics in 2026 remember them vividly).
The bigger story IMO is that the rest of American politics moved in the same direction on both sides. Politics is coarser, partisanship is stronger, and voters are generally more willing to overlook personal flaws if they believe a politician is effective. What seemed like a controversial lesson in the 1990s now looks more like a test run.
You and my mom. I remember her saying “I think he did it, and he should resign” during the interminable period between the Lewinsky allegations and Clinton’s cringeworthy confession. In hindsight, I think you were both right.
My thinking has evolved since Clinton’s presidency. At the time, I thought his affair with Monica Lewinsky showed uncharacteristic lack of judgment on his part. Her youth and infatuation with him made it almost certain she would confide in at least one person; he should have chosen someone with a little more discretion.
But in retrospect, I believe Clinton chose Lewinsky because of her youth and her crush on him, not in spite of those things. The power imbalance turned him on. He didn’t succumb to temptation; he succumbed to a lifelong addiction to adoration from women. In doing so, he victimized Monica Lewinsky. He has never taken responsibility for the wreck he made of her life, because he believes his only sin was infidelity.
Al Franken I’ve had spirited arguments with fellow liberals about what happened to Al Franken. They were enraged with Kristin Gillibrand because Al Franken was an ass grabber with an adolescent sense of humor who happened to also be a good senator. No one seems to remember that Tina Smith is also a good senator. Here’s the other thing I thought at the time about Franken, and still (at least partly) believe: If Democrats are going to hold the moral high ground, we have to be consistent. Al Franken was a sacrifice we had to make. Sure, his transgressions were minor compared to those of Roy Moore or Donald Trump. But we can’t condemn Republicans for being sex pests while giving a pass to our own.
That said, I think Graham Platner is probably a dick. I’m glad I’m not married to him. I don’t think he’s a Nazi, but the kind of troglodyte, misogynist views he expressed on Reddit don’t magically evolve when one decides to run for office. Recent revelations about Platner’s lackadaisical approach to marital fidelity, along with his defensive, non responsive reaction to those revelations, convince me he’s probably not a good guy.
But if I lived in Maine, I’d vote for him. In 2026, we can no longer afford to sacrifice a handsy Al Franken or condemn a predatory Bill Clinton. We maintain the moral high ground only by stopping at least some of Donald Trump’s madness. If that means electing Platner and placating John Fetterman and a thousand other humiliations, that’s what we have to do. Thom Tillis is my senator and I despise him, but if I’m Chuck Schumer I’m buying his lunch every day from now until January.
Good lord, this is long. Thanks, Stephen, for an inspiring, beautifully written piece.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. Agreed. And even more so for quoting Tom Servo. ;).
I’ll admit I despised Clinton while he was president mostly because I found him generally dishonest. At the same time I thought his affairs were a personal matter with nothing to do with his job (though preying on Lewinsky and Jones was troubling, and I thought as I do now that presidents should not be immune from prosecution for criminal acts or civil actions).
The Platner stuff—it just seems very weak as far as scandals go. So he posted a lot of dumb shit online—is that it? Did his explanation satisfy you? I just get the feeling after a decade of Trump we’ve been broken from caring about such scandals.
It says more about the Maine Democratic Party than it says about Platner himself.
I don't know.
I thought Bill was an asshole. I think Trump is an asshole.
Bill was, however, mostly competent. He was still human. Flawed, but human.
It should go without saying, but if evidence emerged that he assaulted a child with Epstein came to light, I'd want him to rot in prison for the rest of his life.
Bill also helped kick off the Third Way, which I think hurt the nation and Democrats.
Trump is a walking bag of vice and sin. No humanity at all. And he's bad at every job he's had aside from theft.
I agree with you. Sexual promiscuity was only one part of the Bill Clinton whole, and most people decided it wasn’t the most important one when deciding how to vote. It’s a decision not unique to him, either. Voters in various parts have been faced with it many times and by and large have made the same decision. Europeans don’t even blink.
Trump’s issues are different. Were he a competent administrator who ran the trains on time and seemed to care about something other than enriching and aggrandizing himself, no one would care about the “grab ‘em by the pussy” shit, crass as it is. There’s also the difference between sleeping with Gennifer Flowers or Marla Maples and bedding a 16 year old on Epstein Island
Very jarring to see my beloved Dexter Morgan playing President Kennedy.
I think I need to go lie down.
I'm glad I don't live in Maine, I don't want that vote on my conscience. I do fully expect him to be a Fetterman if he gets in though. To paraphrase someone on bluesky "he's got the kind of red flags voters usually ignore a qualified black woman for"
Fetterman is a consistent vote for Democrats. He’s annoying, but he is better than Senator Oz. Just like how Sinema was far better than Jeff Flake.
Fetterman does make some dumb shit votes (MARKWAYNE???) but yes he’s overall still better than a Republican especially as caucusing with Democrats alone means one vote closer to controlling the floor and committees which is the most importantly thing considering the way the Senate runs.
Generally one can get lots of clout by slamming Bill Clinton in the Democratic Party, so even then he isn't revered like the Republicans revere their leader. And Hillary Clinton got to pay for Bill's sins (as did we all.) Given the lefty discourse about Platner that kinda echoes handwaving of Fetterman's sketchy past, I just say they got the wheel. My hands are off. I am not in Maine so what can I even say? Just hope we don't get burned by the Cotham-Fetterman Effect.
I am in Maine, and a lot of people are acting as if Platner has the race in hand already. I can’t stress enough that Susan Collins is a powerful force in this state and I will believe her time has come when she is giving a concession speech. She’s Alex Forrest in that regard.
I'm glad I don't have to have that vote on my conscience. I do think there's some blame to be hurled at Schumer though. The best he could (or would) scout out for a candidate was mills, which feels more like him giving the progressive wing a middle finger than anything else.
That’s the rub—if Platner is such a disaster, why the hell couldnt the establishment come up with a better alternative than Mills who was also damaged and uninterested in running? Where’s the JV squad? What a farce.
A more cynical man than I might wonder if they even *want* to regain control of the house or Senate.
That might entail having to actually do some fucking work in between writing fundraising emails.
I have no idea but as nobody is challenging Schumer in office I am sure the progressives are hiding behind him having to make shitty decisions so they can protect their progressive branding.
Yeah, the fact that no one has made active moves to throw his ass out is extremely depressing.
It’s depressing because American politics is depressing. But in my case I can’t afford to look away because my existence as a Black American is inherently political. And accordingly it actually is an existential necessity for me for Democrats to exist.
Congress is deliberately broken by Newt Gingrich. None of the LBJ-style solutions work in a post-Gingrich Congress, because we have two different operating principles. Democrats have to remain yoked to reality and having to persuade people to DO things (legislation, statute).
Republicans just need to take up space and say no. Entropy is their best friend. This is why so many of their representatives are essentially social media influencers. They don’t do a damn thing all day. People like Coach Shouty for example don’t do a damn thing to help the actual needs of the district. He just gums up the works so that unreconstructed state-based regimes of terror can wild out.
Yeah. A large part of the seething rage I have for the Democrats is that we need them because of how broken our fucking politics are.
Incidentally, regarding your point about newt breaking Congress (which is entirely correct), that's why I'm in favor of Republican disenfranchisement. They don't want to have a government at all, so why the fuck should they get a voice in the government they want to break? It's like giving a tumor a say in its chemotherapy regimen.
They sadly get a voice because they represent the unreconstructed, who have outsized political power by design in the USA. When we remember that the United States exists because it was necessary to mollify immoral slavers and the non-owners who benefited from the profit from slave labor, this all makes sense.
Republicans get that voice because the rural planter class needs to suppress the cities that harbor the minorities they hate. Leveraging their hate benefits the uber-wealthy…same as it ever was.
Trump is horrible at any job and this especially so. However raping girls and a young of age woman willingly drawn into a married man’s charm are two very different things (I don’t think anyone argues with that).
It points to a very different danger in that it’s clear he will lie, cheat and steal at any given or taken chance.
The attempts to turn Monica Lewinsky into some sort of feminist icon has bemused me to no end, LOL.
trump is indeed trash - in his personal life and in his public life. As for Platner, it remains to be seen if he will be better in his public life than in his private life. If I lived in Maine, I would have a hard time voting for him, but who else is there at this point? Yes, Clinton was a sleaze in his private life, but much better in his public life. In the long run, would it have been better if Dems had thrown him under the bus for being a private sleaze? I don't know. However, there is no doubt that trump is the worst of humanity, and the country is paying a heavy price for his weakness, evil, and sleaze. There is nothing redeeming about him.
I’ve never been one to base a vote on what my grandmother would have called “tomcatting around”-as long as kids or coercion weren’t involved I didn’t much care and still don’t. Neither, apparently, do most prominent spouses of well known adulterers, including Hillary Clinton (gotta hand it to Ken Paxton’s wife in that regard). Lots of well known tomcats in history who did amazing things, like MLK Jr and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We’ve always taken the good with the bad in that respect. Adultery is a bipartisan failing.
The one undeniable factor in Platner's favor: he was the one who stood up and ran for the office loudly and proudly. Mill's entry felt like a panicked centrist response.
She apparently bowed to pressure as a candidate who has won two statewide races, but it was clear from day one she didn't want the job and agreed to run because she is the definition of party loyalist. Low energy doesn't begin to describe her since-abandoned campaign. For people mad about Platner, well, blame Chuck Schumer. His pressuring Mills meant that when she entered the race, the sea parted and any other Dem who might have been interested begged off or is now running for governor.
Yeah, it's hard for me to respect a mainstream Dem who could have beaten Collins standing down because running for governor was "easier." My in-box is flooded with "democracy is at stake" fundraising emails but no one but Platner was truly willing to step into the breach?
Well, I don't think they backed off necessarily because it was easier, although it probably is-even a weakened Collins is a tough draw for anyone. They backed off because the national party had decided they wanted the "electable" Mills to be the nominee (ala Hillary Clinton in 2016). It was tin eared and IMO Exhibit A in the case against current Dem leadership who insist on looking at the political landscape and judging candidates as if it were still 1992. Janet Mills is almost 80 years old and her popularity has sagged, as is the wont of 2nd term governors-Democrats here respect and appreciate what she has done but we are ready to move on. Graham Platner may not be everyone's cup of tea, but one thing he has proven is that he is not afraid of a fight and that is a tremendously salient characteristic for Democrats and independents sick and tired of the Jared Polises of the world, who would rather protect their positions than fight back. I expect Maine Dems to stick by him and I expect he will give Susan Collins a real run for her money in a way no one else has. I'm not predicting a Platner victory-I know Susan Collins' position too well for that. But Janet Mills *definitely* would not have beat her, any more than did the string of respectable and well vetted candidates we've put up against her for 30 years now. The old formula doesn't work. The voting populace is dying for something besides warmed over, focus-grouped respectability that talks pretty but does nothing. It's time to try something different.
Count me as one lifelong Democrat who wanted Bill Clinton to resign. I found both his willingness to betray his wife, as well as his willingness to abuse his position of power, as disqualifying. As Stephen accurately describes, it was part of the long slide toward total partisanship in national politics, where character became subordinated to winning.
As much as I would like to see Susan Collins driven from office, and to see the Democrats resume control of the senate, Platner has shown himself for what he is, and I would find it impossible to vote for him. His errors of judgement portend even more to come.
I get the argument that Democrats holding their candidates to higher standards while Republicans ignore the personal failures of theirs is a losing proposition. But I hate hypocrisy more than I despise the current GOP. To be clear, I thought that driving Al Franken from office for some silly jokes was crazy, and it only reinforced the whole purity pony concept for Democrats. But some behavior is not acceptable, and Platner's behavior that indicates a lack of consistent character is the deal killer for me.
That’s one other thing—Clinton resigning would have meant President Gore running for reelection with an incumbent advantage and likely beating Bush handily, plus being able to distance himself from Clinton’s gross behavior towards women (which didn’t help the credibility of feminist organizations that rallied to him for things they’d have scorched Republicans over). Was it worth it to circle the wagons for Clinton? I did think the GOP impeachment was stupid but resignation would have helped his party.
One irony is that Democrats largely internalized the lesson of the Clinton years: what a politician can accomplish for “your side” is often more important than what they do or say in their personal life. That's easy to forget because the Clinton scandals are now more than 30 years in the past, (even if many of the people who still dominate American politics in 2026 remember them vividly).
The bigger story IMO is that the rest of American politics moved in the same direction on both sides. Politics is coarser, partisanship is stronger, and voters are generally more willing to overlook personal flaws if they believe a politician is effective. What seemed like a controversial lesson in the 1990s now looks more like a test run.
You and my mom. I remember her saying “I think he did it, and he should resign” during the interminable period between the Lewinsky allegations and Clinton’s cringeworthy confession. In hindsight, I think you were both right.