Dem
47
GOP
53
There was some very interesting news out of the world of sports yesterday, involving the very famous professional golfer Phil "Lefty" Mickelson. Even readers who are not interested in sports have probably heard of him. First of all, he's mega-MAGA, and has often played golf with Donald Trump. Second, until recently, Mickelson was the face of the Saudi-backed LIV golf (about which we will have an item next week, by the way). Third, he got busted for insider trading, a habit he might have developed because the hundreds of millions of dollars he made as a golfer were not enough to cover his gambling debts.
That said, this item is not about any of those things. No, it's about Mickelson's behavior at his home golf course, The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. As you might imagine, for a golf club, it's a big feather in the cap to have one of the world's two or three most famous golfers as a member. So, The Farms Golf Club put Mickelson's name and picture on its website, and in its various promotional materials, and they had a large, framed image of him near the entrance to the Club.
The Club does not have any of those things anymore, however. A female staffer at the facility made a complaint of "inappropriate physical contact" on the part of the golfer. The management investigated, concluded that she was telling the truth, and immediately terminated Mickelson's membership. They removed his picture from the lobby and from the website, and told the golfer in no uncertain terms that if he ever set foot on the property again, he would be arrested. There were some stories yesterday that said Mickelson was in the middle of a round of golf when he was advised of the ruling, and that he was literally ejected mid-round. We cannot tell for sure if these stories are accurate, or are taking some dramatic liberties.
In any case, we pondered making this news into this week's "This Week in Freudenfreude," but then we decided to do something a bit more with it, based on two e-mails we got in the questions mailbag recently. The first of those comes from reader N.W. in Marietta, GA. We were going to answer this question on Saturday, but instead we will share, and answer, it now:
I've been fascinated about the Graham Platner scandals and how Mainers seem to not be fazed at all. Is this a sign that in a post-Trump world, political scandals are all but done being a big deal? Have Democrats decided that character doesn't matter anymore, either?
The second e-mail we got, we're not going to quote directly, because we're going to disagree with it, and we don't want to pick on anyone by name. But the thrust was that these sleazy male politicians, the ones who commit what might be called "penis offenses," are all the same.
Let us start by pushing back against that sentiment. We will do so by identifying three tiers of bad behavior, starting with the worst:
Swalwell Tier: Former representative Eric Swalwell is accused of actual acts of sexual violence, including rape. He is also accused of making inappropriate advances to female staffers, which is rape-adjacent behavior, as it's also a form of using power to gain sexual satisfaction (political/economic power, rather than physical power). All of these things are immoral and unethical, and most or all of them are illegal, due to the lack of consent. This is the tier that Phil Mickelson is apparently in, too.
Paxton Tier: Texas AG, and wannabe U.S. Senator, Ken Paxton's problematic behavior, at least in the sexual arena, is that he cheated on his wife, left, right and sideways. As we have written previously, this is largely between Mr. and (the-soon-to-be-former) Mrs. Paxton. There has been no suggestion that anyone involved did not give consent, and the main injured party here is the cheated-upon wife. It's even possible she's not really injured; if they had an open marriage or other such arrangement, then it's not really politically possible for them to reveal that openly.
The reason that Paxton's behavior is problematic is not the sexual part, per se. It's that he's held himself out to be some sort of model Christian, and the frequent and apparently unrepentant un-Biblical behavior lays bare the hypocrisy of that image. Further, even if we assume that Paxton believes he has been forgiven, by both his wife and his god, his lack of regard for the "rules" in his marriage also reminds us of his lack of regard for the "rules" in other areas of life, like say the rules about insider trading.Platner Tier: This is a tricky one but, in the end, the only things that are pretty much confirmed are that Graham Platner was an emotionally unstable and sometimes unpleasant boyfriend, and that he was emotionally unfaithful by virtue of the sexual text messages he sent to women that were not his wife.
There are also a whole bunch of complicating factors here. It is true that Platner has been accused of physical abuse, but only by one woman, and that woman is a Republican operative who potentially has an agenda. Doesn't necessarily mean she's lying, but it might be instructive that all of the other women who have been involved with Platner, even the ones who said otherwise critical things about him, said he never laid a hand on them. On top of that, there are some potentially mitigating factors, most obviously that he was a combat veteran who was dealing with PTSD. It is also meaningful that Platner's wife, the one who was harmed by the sexting, has forgiven him. Finally, in contrast to Swalwell, Mickelson and Paxton, Platner has shown actual contrition, has promised to do better, and has taken steps to try to fix what was wrong with him.
Please do not read those last two paragraphs as a defense of Platner; readers can reach their own conclusions on how wicked he may, or may not, be. The point is that when it comes to "penis offenses," there are very different levels of guilt, and no one-size-fits-all basis for making assessments.
It is clear, at this point, that in American culture, for far, far too long, most sexual misdeeds by men were nearly all considered to be unworthy of attention, and were ignored or swept under the rug. Then, at the height of #MeToo, the pendulum swung aggressively in the other direction, and nearly any accusation of sexual misdeeds was career-ending. Some people were justly "canceled" during that time—e.g., Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Bill Cosby. For others, and Al Franken leaps to mind here, the punishment probably did not fit the crime. And then, we got reminders that sometimes, a woman might use grandiose claims, poorly supported with evidence, to lash out at a man perceived as an enemy. Tara Reade's attacks on Joe Biden come to mind here.
What it amounts to is that the pendulum, if we may continue to use that metaphor, is now finding its level. It cannot go back to where it was, but if it swings too far in the other direction, that is not justice either. We do not know what will happen with Graham Platner, but we do think there's a compelling argument for looking at his history, and deciding that it's not disqualifying.
At the same time, it is clear that, no matter how much Trump has numbed our collective senses, we are not in the post-scandal era. There is no defense for Eric Swalwell, who very clearly crossed a bright-red line, several times. There is no defense of Phil Mickelson, who also very clearly crossed a bright-red line, even if we don't quite know which one. And what happened to them? They paid the price for their behavior, and with lightning speed.
Finally, some Republicans are already starting to make the argument "Well, if you're going to support Graham Platner, how can you criticize Donald Trump?" Please don't fall victim to such obvious gaslighting. Trump was found, in open court, to have committed sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll. The only reason that the word "rape" was not used in the actual ruling was because of the wonky way New York law is written. Trump is also an adulterer, one who sometimes behaved so under particularly egregious circumstances (e.g., while his wife was breastfeeding his child), and one who broke the law to try to cover up his behavior. And all of this is before we talk about the as-yet-unproven-in-court allegations that Trump raped his first wife, that he raped at least one underage girl, and that he was party to... who knows what, as regards Jeffrey Epstein. When it comes to sexual misconduct, Donald Trump and Graham Platner aren't in the same ZIP code. They aren't even in the same city, state, or country.
We'll have one last set of Platner letters from readers on Tuesday of next week. But we thought that for today, this is what we should do with our Platner coverage.
Oh, and there's been a new poll of the race, from The Public Sentiment Institute, and it has it as a statistical dead heat, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) at 43.7%, Platner at 43.1% and 13.2% undecided. Interestingly, and we have no idea what to do with this information, the pollster then asked this question:
Over the last week, rumors have surfaced that Graham Platner sexually assaulted multiple women in the past. Platner even sent one text to a former girlfriend reading 'I would rape them to show them that I'm dominant.' However, Planter's [sic] wife has defended him against these accusations. Knowing this, who would you vote for in the 2026 senate race?
Again, it's actually only one woman who has made that charge, not multiple. In any event, in the responses to that question, Platner's numbers... got better. Specifically, 48.2% of respondents said they would support him, 40.1% said they'd support Collins, and 11.7% were undecided. Again, hard to know what to make of that. But, in any case, it's clear that Maine voters are going to give him a chance to win them over, and that the recent revelations are not, by themselves, disqualifying. (Z)