So much to unpack in response to Kmele’s clueless comments. You can tell this guy married his high school sweetheart and has not spend much time interacting with dirtbags and women who date dirtbags.
First, what the hell would a woman say to the police if she called them after an encounter like this? That she wants to press criminal charges against a guy that she has been sleeping with because he came over and forced sex upon her until she gave up and just went with it? Intent must be provable in order for a crime to have been committed. When a woman acquiesces (Jennifer’s characterization of the encounter) her legal recourse is extremely limited because she must prove that the guy knew that she did not want to continue having sex. Jennifer does not claim that Platner pinned her down and penetrated her. It sounds like he followed her from room to room, groping at her until she laid there and accepted it, which is what the vast majority of sexual assault victims experience during acquaintance rape.
Then, Kmele repeatedly admonishes Jennifer for “laying with” Platner after the encounter. Is he fucking retarded? It’s not like they were cuddling. The guy was drunk and passed out in her bed. Do you think she wanted to wake him up and have to talk to him again immediately after what had just happened? No! She’s stunned and trying to figure out how the fuck to move on from having gross unwanted sex with a disgusting man while laying there with her eyes wide open. She’s also questioning how she let this happen to herself. She’s asking herself, “Why didn’t I lock the door? If I had, would he have drunkenly banged on it, walking up the whole neighborhood? Would he have broken it down?” And, “Should I have fought him off? Would he have stopped or would he have beaten me up/killed me?”
These are unfortunately the calculations that women make during split second decisions involving men twice their size trying to force sex upon them. They are asking themselves, “Would I rather get punched in the face and choked out (and still have to fuck this guy), or would I rather just lay here and have a dick inside me for a few minutes to keep him from physically assaulting me further?”
Cat attempts to explain this when she makes the observation (which I think is completely accurate) that this is not the same type of sexual assault as the guy who jumps out of the bushes and holds you down and penetrates you. But this is the most common form of sexual assault. Men are bigger than us. We usually don’t fight them off when they are forcing themselves on us physically, even though we probably should because most men when very explicitly told no will stop (except when they are so drunk that they don’t know what’s going on and have a history of violence like Platner, in which case he could’ve killed her). And that’s probably what she was afraid of.
Either way, everyone needs to teach their daughters to fight men off when they’re in this situation. Don’t just say no a few times and give in. Punch. Bite. Kick. Scream. The problem with encounters like this is that women, being smaller, are fucking terrified, so they acquiesce and the guy thinks that the woman consented halfway through. Platner doesn’t even remember it, so he’s not even lying when he denies that this happened. Can you imagine the line of questioning if they were before the police or a prosecutor?
I have read the transcripts of many sexual assault trials and the women are asked repeatedly how many times they told the guy no and whether they thought the man/men would have viewed the encounter as consensual. They are asked about their previous sexual history with the accused and others. They are asked a bunch of humiliating things.
This is why most women don’t report most unwanted sex.
I think Kmele raised these points not to represent the other side but to defend the people are skeptical, and specifically Tracey who Kmele has sympathy for.
It’s very mild. I don’t know what Tracey’s full argument is but from what I’ve seen it’s weak as hell.
I was ready to be annoyed, perhaps that’s why I was left feeling he didn’t do anything egregious. He didn’t push back on any of Kat’s assertions and she was laying out her case very calmly and in a way that would have allowed Kmele to debate the issue without it blowing up, but he didn’t. I think the arguments Kmele made were weak but he wasn’t defending Platner he was trying to offer some rational basis for the people who were skeptical and not based on partisan reasons.
Also, without Kmele saying that, Kat wouldn’t have offered the great explanation that she did. Devil’s advocate is a great way to get more out of a person and fill out a point of view, which is what resulted. Also, they do have to try and illicit a discussion that’s a) entertaining b) different than you get everywhere and c) long enough to fill 70-120 minutes.
I appreciate both of your responses! Magic Wade's because of one woman's perspective on the issue, and yours because I also had that reaction after actually listening to the episode. (And hers also because it prompted yours, in a kind of exemplar of your last point.)
It's nice to have a comments section full of insights.
I also appreciate the alternative interpretation of Kmele’s comments, i.e., playing devils advocate and in doing this, drawing Kat out, resulting in a deeper conversation.
I primarily thought that if Kmele was sincerely attempting to question the credulity of the accuser those were very weak points. There are so many false sexual assault allegations, including many that are reported to the police. I question a lot of them, and I don’t necessarily take this accuser at face value. But not because of the way she describes the encounter or aftermath. If anything, she admits that Platner likely didn’t realize it was non-consensual, both because he was blacked out drunk and because she acquiesced to the encounter. (And because she alleges she felt the need to inform him afterward via txt that she did not consent and that she was ending their relationship).
I assume most men don’t want to get into the weeds about this, but the difference between unwanted sex that you allowed to happen because you are (rationally) unwilling to risk further physical harm by resisting and being held down and raped by a stranger is incredibly important, particularly in the eyes of the law. Maybe the court of public opinion thinks these are the same, but good luck getting a prosecutor who will take on a case described exactly as this one and good luck getting a jury convicting the accused. When Kat describes this as a banal encounter of sexual assault, she hits the nail on the head. The thing she failed to hammer home and that I thought was worth reinforcing is that this is why you wouldn’t call the police, not just the day after, but perhaps ever, even if you had every reason to believe that what had happened to you was non-consensual.
(It’s actually pretty crazy that Harvey Weinstein was able to get convicted for a bunch of encounters that were coercive, but did not involve any physical force, but that’s where the power imbalance was doing all the heavy lifting in his accusers’ cases).
I think one of those uncomfortable truths that no one (for a wide variety of reasons) wants to admit is that sexual assault is intrinsically hard to prosecute and that there is no way to change that. Like our need to breathe air and drink water, and like the risk of mugging in bad parts of town on late-night walks, and like telephone scams, etc., it's just one of those basic facts of existence in human society that you simply have to accept and then mitigate by avoiding those situations to the degree possible.
One of the reasons no one says this out loud is that it immediately provokes blowback. I assert that it's not "victim blaming" to say "Don't walk down a dark alleyway at night", but the utopian instinct in a shockingly high percentage of people immediately goes there.
(In the old days, you'd just kill the motherfucker and your affirmative defense was "He needed killing", and if the community was aware of the behavior, the jury would agree. Nowadays there's even less accountability for this shit.)
I actually had something that detailed all of this about the logic of not calling the cops after this encounter, and the ways that even if it got so far as a trial she’d get picked apart and have much of her personal life and highly personal sexual life on display for the public, and all to end for a non conviction where she would be painted not just as a liar but a predator, for all in her community to decide—including future employers. I’ve learned a lot about the reality on this from the women’s side. Rape from these sorts of encounters is the most common think, by which I mean someone with an intimate relationship with the accused, or at least are the most common that go unreported.
Yes men have good reason for skepticism for reasons I could list about recent history with MeToo but I think the key is for men to understand that when you’re skeptical, you need to talk about it in very clear terms. For me it’s to say that the reasons she doesn’t come forward are the same reasons why we can’t assert any case in isolation is true or not, but that doesn’t mean she did things wrong.
That’s distinct from adjudicating this in regard to Platner. Beyond his own CVS receipt of bright red flags to this point, the fact is that these women knew that even if the media played it *neutral*, they’d face a wrath from the left like crazy. Sure, maybe direct violence was unlikely (though more likely than ever before given the times) but a harassment campaign, doxxing, smearing, or even violent attacks like SWATting that are low commitment would be fairly likely. Of course, the NYT didn’t do that, and i think Racicot felt like had a duty to Lyndsey to make that leap.
***A Key Aspect*** I think people should consider: why did someone Hasan Piker read the story in Politico, with all the gaps that he could attack, and say immediately on live stream “That’s Curtains” on vague corroborating evidence. I think there are 2 reasons: he has many reasons he might want to be united with Dems (his federal investigation under Trump, DSA takeover, he’s kind of a fraud and wants to be a star in the NYT etc) OR because he knew how the left would react if they were egged on to go after Racicot. I don’t think absolute bottom feeder Kulinsky or whatever his name is has commented at all on it. Normally they’d be revving people up. Maybe it’s just because they’re desperate to win Maine and see him as a loser themselves, or maybe it’s because they know how dangerous their following is…
Very well argued. The natural reality of male physical dominance over females and the terror females feel when males express it is overlooked as you say. As for Kmele, he is showing the classic male perspective on this woman’s situation in this case. Of course he would get up and leave, because that’s what a male would do. Males have a vastly difficult time perceiving the realities of the female perspective. It’s so different, we live in separate realities which reveal themselves in incidents like this.
"As for Kmele, he is showing the classic male perspective on this woman’s situation in this case"
This is actually what's getting me about his response. I'm a 6'2", 195 lb man. My wife is 10 inches shorter than me and 70 lbs lighter. I have a weird mind, but I always worry that she might have some primitive part of her brain not allowing her to be 100% at ease with me. This, despite being married for 15 years because she - like many women - has had issues with men in the past. How can you not empathize with someone knowing that there's this dichotomy that is 100% biological. It's why you drop back a few paces or cross to the other side of the street if you're walking behind a woman at night. Kmele knows this, so why he's so perplexed at why she'd lay in bed with him after being raped is staggering.
I know many couples where the man is huge and woman is small. Aside from glaring exceptions, men do not beat up their wives. Men who do , deserve to be beaten mercilessly. I find male violence against women, sexual or otherwise, disgusting and unacceptable. I don’t know being male, but it doesn’t seem that most women fear their men. But, there could be a bit of fear that is suppressed. Don’t know.
I think my concern comes from the same place where I worry about stepping on one of my cats. I'm always looking at my feet when walking around my house.
Thank you, Magic. All of these thoughts were going through my head as I was listening to the episode. Part of me was annoyed, but another part of me was delighted at Kmele’s naïveté. It made me happy for his wife, because I imagine she’s never had to describe to him the experience you do eloquently lay out here.
I wish Moynihan was there and had known that the HP Lovecraft book title was actually Dagon not Dragon, because I’m 90% confident we’d get a mini roast of Kmele in blaccent.
"Can we stop pretending that we're all surprised that this asshat was anything other than complete joke BEFORE any of the rape stuff. All these clowns on CNN and MSNBC (or NOW or whatever the fuck it's called) who couldn't be bothered to do one fucking iota of investigative analysis because he was THEIR guy. And these are the same idiots who who told you night after night that Biden was in the best shape of his life when he was slurring his words, and wandering off into the distance; these people CANNOT be trusted, as far as I'm concerned."
Just read that in an exasperated aggressive tone, and I'm pretty sure that's the crux of his opinion on the matter.
This is just a theory but I stand on it 10 toes down: Stephen Kings twitter is run by his Non binary, activist, Unitarian Universalist reverend daughter Naomi King. Who tried to gain a social media presence but failed. SK left twitter for a while and when he returned he was woker and more cringe than ever.
So, Platner has the “working class aesthetic” according to the political high priests of the Democratic Party. Instead of attracting working class voters, these snobs have insulted working class voters by implying they are crude disheveled drunks who abuse women as evidenced by Platner. They shouldn’t be surprised if working class voters vote MAGA.
The Democratic Party has always had a pretentious and presumptuous attitude towards the working class, but now that they've turned towards the DSA in hopes of resurrecting their profile among that group, it's just less hostile. In the 90's and 2000's it was always something to the effect of, "Conservatives [who were often working class] are too stupid to know what's good for them, and they're always voting against their interests because they all think they're going to be millionaires someday." I don't hear that critique as often these days, but the same ethos of that message is still contained in their rhetoric today. The fact that they thought Graham Platner was their ticket to winning over the working class is just an expression of that because they all knew he was a disgusting character. It's just that they were convinced that's who they needed to appeal to. If anything it just exposes how little of working class interests is represented by the people who speak on their behalf.
Nothing grates on me more than the “voting against their interests” line. Thomas Frank broke the minds of a whole generation (probably multiple generations) of Democratic apparatchiks.
I’ve seen examples of people saying things like “I am the police trying to catch a criminal, how would they commit this crime?” Or whatever. I mean it’s not going to tell you how to make a nuclear bomb but you probably already know how to do that.
Kmele….seriously?? Why didn't she call the cops? Do a little reflection pls. Talk to some women. Thats just fucking dumb. Absolutely the most aggregious and frustrating devils advocate position he's ever taken.
For somebody who always goes on about nuance and sophistication, Kmele is incredibly clumsy when he’s trying to parse these kinds of things. That’s not to say they aren’t worth parsing, but I think he’s focusing on the wrong thing here. The issue is the NYT treatment of the story, not whether or not the thing happened exactly the way the woman described it.
That. I’m going to have to pick up after the gambling spot in the morning, but…..
Nobody I would ever associate with would ever treat ONE woman that way and ever get a second thought from me. I understand that it might not have legally-actionable, but…..
I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve been blackout drunk. I’d over-poured, and was I urged to not throw it out.
The one who made those urges….purportedly I made some very odd comments to. I didn’t try to have sex with her. That we’re married would have made it harder to prove.
But you also don’t admit to a whitewater-wristing trip in the shitter. It is possible to restrain yourself for a few days.
Not a ton more to say. The ME Dens might as well go with the governor if they’re gonna go either way somebody else; she is younger than King. But it’d fit in with the Senate retirement home.
Stephen King obviously has a way better record of blacking out in the state of Maine than Platner. Worst thing King ever did that he doesn't remember is writing Cujo.
"something that exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
"Let your brother go, honey, no I know, I know and you did a great job. This isn't - mommy and daddy didn't raise you in an outpost in New Mexico - we don't throw your brother away in this house....no, I know that, but he is not a puppy. He is not a puppy. He's your brother."
Holy crap I forgot about the Dark is Rising series. Great recommendation. Occupied a formative moment in my life around 5th grade. Arthurian/C.S. Lewis themes. When Harry Potter came out a few years later I was unimpressed by comparison, though I might have already been outside the age range by then. I might reread them now to see how they hold up.
The sheer number of people I know in real life who are STILL (!!!!!) tying themselves into knots trying to justify supporting this piece of shit is deeply fucking concerning.
Saying the Platner allegations have more evidence than the Kavanaugh allegations is technically true, but an understatement. There was no evidence of the Kavanaugh allegations at all, and some exculpatory evidence.
I’m unsubscribing finally. How dare this pod ask if it’s too much to ask for service members to not flog it while deployed. As a former sailor we saw it as our daily duty while at sea. For America n stuff
Why doesn’t someone write about the history of wanking in the military. The Revolution to the present. No one ever talks about it but you can bet there was wanking at Gettysburg and wanking at DDay. Don’t forget Submarines. This history is going to be multi volume.
Pouring one out for Graham while watching his highlight reel one last time:
https://youtube.com/shorts/zCOfR9VoSjY?is=IvFuF78NNSn-rc8Z
I am so fucking high right now and this made my night. Blessings. 🙏
Jah bless
For some reason this reminds me of Chef's dad from South Park. I wish he asked for about tre fiddy.
Hahahaha
So much to unpack in response to Kmele’s clueless comments. You can tell this guy married his high school sweetheart and has not spend much time interacting with dirtbags and women who date dirtbags.
First, what the hell would a woman say to the police if she called them after an encounter like this? That she wants to press criminal charges against a guy that she has been sleeping with because he came over and forced sex upon her until she gave up and just went with it? Intent must be provable in order for a crime to have been committed. When a woman acquiesces (Jennifer’s characterization of the encounter) her legal recourse is extremely limited because she must prove that the guy knew that she did not want to continue having sex. Jennifer does not claim that Platner pinned her down and penetrated her. It sounds like he followed her from room to room, groping at her until she laid there and accepted it, which is what the vast majority of sexual assault victims experience during acquaintance rape.
Then, Kmele repeatedly admonishes Jennifer for “laying with” Platner after the encounter. Is he fucking retarded? It’s not like they were cuddling. The guy was drunk and passed out in her bed. Do you think she wanted to wake him up and have to talk to him again immediately after what had just happened? No! She’s stunned and trying to figure out how the fuck to move on from having gross unwanted sex with a disgusting man while laying there with her eyes wide open. She’s also questioning how she let this happen to herself. She’s asking herself, “Why didn’t I lock the door? If I had, would he have drunkenly banged on it, walking up the whole neighborhood? Would he have broken it down?” And, “Should I have fought him off? Would he have stopped or would he have beaten me up/killed me?”
These are unfortunately the calculations that women make during split second decisions involving men twice their size trying to force sex upon them. They are asking themselves, “Would I rather get punched in the face and choked out (and still have to fuck this guy), or would I rather just lay here and have a dick inside me for a few minutes to keep him from physically assaulting me further?”
Cat attempts to explain this when she makes the observation (which I think is completely accurate) that this is not the same type of sexual assault as the guy who jumps out of the bushes and holds you down and penetrates you. But this is the most common form of sexual assault. Men are bigger than us. We usually don’t fight them off when they are forcing themselves on us physically, even though we probably should because most men when very explicitly told no will stop (except when they are so drunk that they don’t know what’s going on and have a history of violence like Platner, in which case he could’ve killed her). And that’s probably what she was afraid of.
Either way, everyone needs to teach their daughters to fight men off when they’re in this situation. Don’t just say no a few times and give in. Punch. Bite. Kick. Scream. The problem with encounters like this is that women, being smaller, are fucking terrified, so they acquiesce and the guy thinks that the woman consented halfway through. Platner doesn’t even remember it, so he’s not even lying when he denies that this happened. Can you imagine the line of questioning if they were before the police or a prosecutor?
I have read the transcripts of many sexual assault trials and the women are asked repeatedly how many times they told the guy no and whether they thought the man/men would have viewed the encounter as consensual. They are asked about their previous sexual history with the accused and others. They are asked a bunch of humiliating things.
This is why most women don’t report most unwanted sex.
Get a clue, Kmele.
I think Kmele raised these points not to represent the other side but to defend the people are skeptical, and specifically Tracey who Kmele has sympathy for.
It’s very mild. I don’t know what Tracey’s full argument is but from what I’ve seen it’s weak as hell.
I was ready to be annoyed, perhaps that’s why I was left feeling he didn’t do anything egregious. He didn’t push back on any of Kat’s assertions and she was laying out her case very calmly and in a way that would have allowed Kmele to debate the issue without it blowing up, but he didn’t. I think the arguments Kmele made were weak but he wasn’t defending Platner he was trying to offer some rational basis for the people who were skeptical and not based on partisan reasons.
Also, without Kmele saying that, Kat wouldn’t have offered the great explanation that she did. Devil’s advocate is a great way to get more out of a person and fill out a point of view, which is what resulted. Also, they do have to try and illicit a discussion that’s a) entertaining b) different than you get everywhere and c) long enough to fill 70-120 minutes.
I appreciate both of your responses! Magic Wade's because of one woman's perspective on the issue, and yours because I also had that reaction after actually listening to the episode. (And hers also because it prompted yours, in a kind of exemplar of your last point.)
It's nice to have a comments section full of insights.
I also appreciate the alternative interpretation of Kmele’s comments, i.e., playing devils advocate and in doing this, drawing Kat out, resulting in a deeper conversation.
I primarily thought that if Kmele was sincerely attempting to question the credulity of the accuser those were very weak points. There are so many false sexual assault allegations, including many that are reported to the police. I question a lot of them, and I don’t necessarily take this accuser at face value. But not because of the way she describes the encounter or aftermath. If anything, she admits that Platner likely didn’t realize it was non-consensual, both because he was blacked out drunk and because she acquiesced to the encounter. (And because she alleges she felt the need to inform him afterward via txt that she did not consent and that she was ending their relationship).
I assume most men don’t want to get into the weeds about this, but the difference between unwanted sex that you allowed to happen because you are (rationally) unwilling to risk further physical harm by resisting and being held down and raped by a stranger is incredibly important, particularly in the eyes of the law. Maybe the court of public opinion thinks these are the same, but good luck getting a prosecutor who will take on a case described exactly as this one and good luck getting a jury convicting the accused. When Kat describes this as a banal encounter of sexual assault, she hits the nail on the head. The thing she failed to hammer home and that I thought was worth reinforcing is that this is why you wouldn’t call the police, not just the day after, but perhaps ever, even if you had every reason to believe that what had happened to you was non-consensual.
(It’s actually pretty crazy that Harvey Weinstein was able to get convicted for a bunch of encounters that were coercive, but did not involve any physical force, but that’s where the power imbalance was doing all the heavy lifting in his accusers’ cases).
I think one of those uncomfortable truths that no one (for a wide variety of reasons) wants to admit is that sexual assault is intrinsically hard to prosecute and that there is no way to change that. Like our need to breathe air and drink water, and like the risk of mugging in bad parts of town on late-night walks, and like telephone scams, etc., it's just one of those basic facts of existence in human society that you simply have to accept and then mitigate by avoiding those situations to the degree possible.
One of the reasons no one says this out loud is that it immediately provokes blowback. I assert that it's not "victim blaming" to say "Don't walk down a dark alleyway at night", but the utopian instinct in a shockingly high percentage of people immediately goes there.
(In the old days, you'd just kill the motherfucker and your affirmative defense was "He needed killing", and if the community was aware of the behavior, the jury would agree. Nowadays there's even less accountability for this shit.)
I actually had something that detailed all of this about the logic of not calling the cops after this encounter, and the ways that even if it got so far as a trial she’d get picked apart and have much of her personal life and highly personal sexual life on display for the public, and all to end for a non conviction where she would be painted not just as a liar but a predator, for all in her community to decide—including future employers. I’ve learned a lot about the reality on this from the women’s side. Rape from these sorts of encounters is the most common think, by which I mean someone with an intimate relationship with the accused, or at least are the most common that go unreported.
Yes men have good reason for skepticism for reasons I could list about recent history with MeToo but I think the key is for men to understand that when you’re skeptical, you need to talk about it in very clear terms. For me it’s to say that the reasons she doesn’t come forward are the same reasons why we can’t assert any case in isolation is true or not, but that doesn’t mean she did things wrong.
That’s distinct from adjudicating this in regard to Platner. Beyond his own CVS receipt of bright red flags to this point, the fact is that these women knew that even if the media played it *neutral*, they’d face a wrath from the left like crazy. Sure, maybe direct violence was unlikely (though more likely than ever before given the times) but a harassment campaign, doxxing, smearing, or even violent attacks like SWATting that are low commitment would be fairly likely. Of course, the NYT didn’t do that, and i think Racicot felt like had a duty to Lyndsey to make that leap.
***A Key Aspect*** I think people should consider: why did someone Hasan Piker read the story in Politico, with all the gaps that he could attack, and say immediately on live stream “That’s Curtains” on vague corroborating evidence. I think there are 2 reasons: he has many reasons he might want to be united with Dems (his federal investigation under Trump, DSA takeover, he’s kind of a fraud and wants to be a star in the NYT etc) OR because he knew how the left would react if they were egged on to go after Racicot. I don’t think absolute bottom feeder Kulinsky or whatever his name is has commented at all on it. Normally they’d be revving people up. Maybe it’s just because they’re desperate to win Maine and see him as a loser themselves, or maybe it’s because they know how dangerous their following is…
Very well argued. The natural reality of male physical dominance over females and the terror females feel when males express it is overlooked as you say. As for Kmele, he is showing the classic male perspective on this woman’s situation in this case. Of course he would get up and leave, because that’s what a male would do. Males have a vastly difficult time perceiving the realities of the female perspective. It’s so different, we live in separate realities which reveal themselves in incidents like this.
"As for Kmele, he is showing the classic male perspective on this woman’s situation in this case"
This is actually what's getting me about his response. I'm a 6'2", 195 lb man. My wife is 10 inches shorter than me and 70 lbs lighter. I have a weird mind, but I always worry that she might have some primitive part of her brain not allowing her to be 100% at ease with me. This, despite being married for 15 years because she - like many women - has had issues with men in the past. How can you not empathize with someone knowing that there's this dichotomy that is 100% biological. It's why you drop back a few paces or cross to the other side of the street if you're walking behind a woman at night. Kmele knows this, so why he's so perplexed at why she'd lay in bed with him after being raped is staggering.
I know many couples where the man is huge and woman is small. Aside from glaring exceptions, men do not beat up their wives. Men who do , deserve to be beaten mercilessly. I find male violence against women, sexual or otherwise, disgusting and unacceptable. I don’t know being male, but it doesn’t seem that most women fear their men. But, there could be a bit of fear that is suppressed. Don’t know.
I think my concern comes from the same place where I worry about stepping on one of my cats. I'm always looking at my feet when walking around my house.
Came here to say the same thing.
Thank you, Magic. All of these thoughts were going through my head as I was listening to the episode. Part of me was annoyed, but another part of me was delighted at Kmele’s naïveté. It made me happy for his wife, because I imagine she’s never had to describe to him the experience you do eloquently lay out here.
Better than anything I could have said.
Thank you - all I could muster in my comment was "fucking dumb", Well said. Someone go staple this to his forehead.
Good reply. I was shocked that Kmele was trying "nuance" a pretty fucking binary situation. I love the guy, but my God...
I’m grateful Moynihan isn’t here for this one, glad to be spared the heavy breathing because Kat is in the room.
I figured they didn’t actually call him because of it. Can’t say I blame them…or Michael for that matter.
I wish Moynihan was there and had known that the HP Lovecraft book title was actually Dagon not Dragon, because I’m 90% confident we’d get a mini roast of Kmele in blaccent.
To be fair, I'm even heavy breathing and I'm just listening to the podcast.
I'll do my best impression of him for you:
"Can we stop pretending that we're all surprised that this asshat was anything other than complete joke BEFORE any of the rape stuff. All these clowns on CNN and MSNBC (or NOW or whatever the fuck it's called) who couldn't be bothered to do one fucking iota of investigative analysis because he was THEIR guy. And these are the same idiots who who told you night after night that Biden was in the best shape of his life when he was slurring his words, and wandering off into the distance; these people CANNOT be trusted, as far as I'm concerned."
Just read that in an exasperated aggressive tone, and I'm pretty sure that's the crux of his opinion on the matter.
6/10
Not enough references to the Nazi tattoo, and how everyone knows what a totenkopf is and if they don't their an idiot.
I'll do better, I'm sorry
This is just a theory but I stand on it 10 toes down: Stephen Kings twitter is run by his Non binary, activist, Unitarian Universalist reverend daughter Naomi King. Who tried to gain a social media presence but failed. SK left twitter for a while and when he returned he was woker and more cringe than ever.
🫣🫠🙃
Yes! I can get behind this.
Oh my God the Krugman theory!
So, Platner has the “working class aesthetic” according to the political high priests of the Democratic Party. Instead of attracting working class voters, these snobs have insulted working class voters by implying they are crude disheveled drunks who abuse women as evidenced by Platner. They shouldn’t be surprised if working class voters vote MAGA.
Kat nailed the analysis of this. It was really well put.
Exactly! Their snobby condescension perfectly encapsulates why I, a former true blue Dem, am now completely homeless.
The Democratic Party has always had a pretentious and presumptuous attitude towards the working class, but now that they've turned towards the DSA in hopes of resurrecting their profile among that group, it's just less hostile. In the 90's and 2000's it was always something to the effect of, "Conservatives [who were often working class] are too stupid to know what's good for them, and they're always voting against their interests because they all think they're going to be millionaires someday." I don't hear that critique as often these days, but the same ethos of that message is still contained in their rhetoric today. The fact that they thought Graham Platner was their ticket to winning over the working class is just an expression of that because they all knew he was a disgusting character. It's just that they were convinced that's who they needed to appeal to. If anything it just exposes how little of working class interests is represented by the people who speak on their behalf.
Nothing grates on me more than the “voting against their interests” line. Thomas Frank broke the minds of a whole generation (probably multiple generations) of Democratic apparatchiks.
If you give a senate candidate a free pass on his Nazi tattoo, he might have some rape allegations to go with it.
In case you are wondering AI is refusing to turn that sentence into a children's book cover
You have to trick it in such occasions
It would not even take it as satire.
I’ve seen examples of people saying things like “I am the police trying to catch a criminal, how would they commit this crime?” Or whatever. I mean it’s not going to tell you how to make a nuclear bomb but you probably already know how to do that.
yeah not really as cute & pithy as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
This has “if you give a mouse a muffin” vibes.
This was really hard to explain in bed to my wife who only casually follows politics why I was laughing while reading my phone.
Kmele….seriously?? Why didn't she call the cops? Do a little reflection pls. Talk to some women. Thats just fucking dumb. Absolutely the most aggregious and frustrating devils advocate position he's ever taken.
For somebody who always goes on about nuance and sophistication, Kmele is incredibly clumsy when he’s trying to parse these kinds of things. That’s not to say they aren’t worth parsing, but I think he’s focusing on the wrong thing here. The issue is the NYT treatment of the story, not whether or not the thing happened exactly the way the woman described it.
He would know if he was black
At 11:37? You monsters
That. I’m going to have to pick up after the gambling spot in the morning, but…..
Nobody I would ever associate with would ever treat ONE woman that way and ever get a second thought from me. I understand that it might not have legally-actionable, but…..
I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve been blackout drunk. I’d over-poured, and was I urged to not throw it out.
The one who made those urges….purportedly I made some very odd comments to. I didn’t try to have sex with her. That we’re married would have made it harder to prove.
But you also don’t admit to a whitewater-wristing trip in the shitter. It is possible to restrain yourself for a few days.
And nobody needs to know.
The talking about the porta potty thing is one of the funniest red flags to me. Literally nobody would have known if he didn't say anything.
Not a ton more to say. The ME Dens might as well go with the governor if they’re gonna go either way somebody else; she is younger than King. But it’d fit in with the Senate retirement home.
Stephen King obviously has a way better record of blacking out in the state of Maine than Platner. Worst thing King ever did that he doesn't remember is writing Cujo.
Tbf he’s only become tedious and problematic since he stopped doing coke
I mean that’s what I was thinking when Welch was talking how paranoid his output was in the 70s.
We would not have his directorial glory of Maximum Overdrive without it
Kmele's kids reciting the War is God speech from "Blood Meridian" to frightened dinner party guests
"something that exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
"Let your brother go, honey, no I know, I know and you did a great job. This isn't - mommy and daddy didn't raise you in an outpost in New Mexico - we don't throw your brother away in this house....no, I know that, but he is not a puppy. He is not a puppy. He's your brother."
Holy crap I forgot about the Dark is Rising series. Great recommendation. Occupied a formative moment in my life around 5th grade. Arthurian/C.S. Lewis themes. When Harry Potter came out a few years later I was unimpressed by comparison, though I might have already been outside the age range by then. I might reread them now to see how they hold up.
They promoted him, they supported him, and primary voters picked him. The Democrats should have to ride this motherfucker to the end.
The sheer number of people I know in real life who are STILL (!!!!!) tying themselves into knots trying to justify supporting this piece of shit is deeply fucking concerning.
They're on the blue team, so anyone on their side is better than anyone on the red team.
It's how cults work.
Saying the Platner allegations have more evidence than the Kavanaugh allegations is technically true, but an understatement. There was no evidence of the Kavanaugh allegations at all, and some exculpatory evidence.
I’m unsubscribing finally. How dare this pod ask if it’s too much to ask for service members to not flog it while deployed. As a former sailor we saw it as our daily duty while at sea. For America n stuff
I’m pro-wanking, to be clear.
Why doesn’t someone write about the history of wanking in the military. The Revolution to the present. No one ever talks about it but you can bet there was wanking at Gettysburg and wanking at DDay. Don’t forget Submarines. This history is going to be multi volume.
There is going to be a huge load of history.
History repeats itself over and over again.
Mr Welch you need to post the following to all your social media accounts to assure you are an ally to the cause: 🇺🇸◻️
I was with Kat on nearly everything except for "can't they just wait?"
Matt Welch admits he can't grow a beard. I've won.
Boo! 😠 Don’t let NB discourage you, Matt!
and the fucking drunks introduced the guest!