By Becket Adams
Sunday, June 14, 2026
We’re evidently in the “pounce” phase of Democratic
Senate nominee Graham Platner’s Hindenburg of a campaign.
Are you surprised?
The funny thing about the “pounce” trope — where
newsrooms downplay a Democratic scandal by making the “story” about the right’s
reaction to the story — is that it nearly always signals the scandal is indeed
. . . a scandal.
Otherwise, there would be no need to shift focus.
At ABC News last week, Mary Bruce, like clockwork,
accused Republican Senator Susan Collins of “pouncing” on the series of
controversies dogging Platner, whom the network correspondent describes as
a humble “oyster farmer” who, yes, once had a tattoo “resembling a Nazi
symbol.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, not least of which is the
insistence that Platner’s tattoo merely resembled the SS symbol as opposed to
being that symbol. The tattoo, which Platner has since covered up with a goofy Gaelic dog-thingy, was an exact likeness of the SS
“death’s head,” not just a lookalike. Furthermore, former acquaintances claim,
as do text messages from before the tattoo became public knowledge, that he
knew exactly what the image meant as far back as 2012 and referred to it as “my
Totenkopf.”
Then, of course, there’s the insistence on characterizing
Platner, whose academic background includes attendance at an elite prep school
where tuition currently sits at around $71,000–$80,800 per year, as the
mild-mannered “oyster farmer,” with no mention of the fact that his customer
base is essentially just his mother.
More than all of this, though, is the laughable
suggestion that there is something notable or even untoward about the Collins
campaign’s pointing out that her opponent in the 2026 midterms is a too-online
sex pest edgelord with no impulse control.
This is not “pouncing.” This is called campaigning.
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
And when life gives you an opponent who once sported a
Nazi tattoo, whose fondness for dating apps and hookup sites followed him into
his marriage, who has published a series of unhinged opinions that would make
even President Trump blush, and who has a string of ex-girlfriends alleging
physical and emotional abuse, you make a campaign ad.
Collins’s team would be guilty of political malpractice
if they didn’t point all this out, ad nauseam.
If you can believe it, Bruce and ABC are hardly the first
to accuse those wicked Republicans of noticing the things that the Maine
Democratic candidate has said and done.
In response to reports that Platner had sent racy text
messages to women who are not his wife, the New York Times reported gravely that “officials with
the campaign arm of Senate Republicans seized on the news, circulating
reports and attacking Mr. Platner.”
Then, in reaction to a report detailing allegations that
Platner was abusive to ex-girlfriends, The Guardian likewise noted with sadness, and perhaps a
tinge of indignation, that “Republicans [had] seized on the latest
report.”
In reference to the full body of scandals and
controversies created by Platner, The Hill reported last week that “Republicans have pounced
on the string of controversies in the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary.”
When Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills suspended her
campaign for Senate, Politico reported that Republicans had “seized on”
her exit “to question Platner’s blue-collar bona fides and highlight his past
scandal.”
Emphasis very much added.
The “pouncing” trope is funnier than usual in the context
of the Maine Senate race because of the implicit, if not explicit, suggestion
that it’s unfair to rake through a Senate candidate’s past.
Are the folks at ABC News, the New York Times, Politico,
etc. unaware of what goes on in regular campaigning?
Are we really going to pretend as if bringing up
Platner’s own words and deeds is somehow unusual for U.S. politics or dirty
pool?
Apparently — but that’s not all!
The trope is doubly absurd for this specific case in
Maine, given that the misdirection for scandals involving a Nazi tattoo and
allegations of abusive behavior comes after we’ve spent the better part of the
past decade listening to members of the press drone on about “white supremacy,”
“toxic masculinity,” and how everything from milk to having babies to
birdwatching to the “okay” hand gesture is rooted somehow in racism and
fascism.
Yet now that these people are faced with something more
concrete than their own bogeymen, they’d like very much for everyone to stop
noticing.
They’d like it even more if the Republican senator from
Maine would say nothing about it.
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