Republicans FINALLY Have Their Graham Platner Problem
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A month ago I was in New York on a run of media hits — ostensibly to talk about Graham Platner, our Senate candidate in Maine who’d been accused of abusing women and was obviously going to have to drop out. But the clip of mine on Fox News that went the most viral wasn’t really about Platner. It was me railing about the double standard in American politics. Because while every Republican was gleeful watching Democrats squirm over a terrible candidate we’d elevated, not one of them would say a single word about Max Miller. And in hindsight, I think that conversation exposed a rot that runs deeper than Republican hypocrisy.
Max Miller is a sitting Republican congressman from Ohio with close ties to Donald Trump, credibly accused by his ex-wife of abuse — including beating his own young daughter. It seems abundantly clear at this point: he beat them and he lied about it. He broke his daughter’s collarbone. His daughter called daddy’s house scary. And here’s how Miller decided to defend himself on camera yesterday: “If I had assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later?” Then, in the same breath: “I’m not getting out of this race.”
So on top of being a woman beater and a drug addict, he’s also a fucking moron. How the hell does he think that helps his cause? This is a typical abuser excuse and it makes no sense. Platner at least had the decency to get out; Miller’s daring them to make him — and not a single Republican politician has called for him to resign or be expelled from Congress. Every one of them, and every pundit too, should be asked on the record whether they think he should be gone. They were giddy to talk about Platner. They’re awfully fucking quiet now.
That’s what set me off on Fox News. I turned to the guest I was debating and asked why nobody in their party cared about any of this. And I had them absolutely shook — because they know they can’t speak out about the predators in their own party when the predator-in-chief is Donald Trump. A man who had to pay E. Jean Carroll more than $5 million because he was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting her — when what should have actually happened is that he should be in prison right now, full stop.
The double standard is what disgusts me. And that’s exactly why I had zero problem going on TV and answering question after question about Graham Platner. He’s a scumbag. He should have dropped out, and I was one of the first to say so — same as I said about Eric Swalwell. But I don’t want rules that only apply to Democrats. We cannot be the only party that cares about this, and the media cannot keep treating us differently just because Republicans wake up every single morning and genuinely do not give a damn who they hurt on the way to power — all so they can cut taxes for billionaires and line Donald Trump’s back pocket.
That’s what eats at me. Max Miller isn't an exception, either. He's part of a pattern. When it’s a Democrat, the coverage is enormous, because the MAGA media machine grabs it and runs. When it’s one of their own, silence. And it’s not just Trump and Max Miller. It’s Cory Mills. It’s Ryan Fournier, the founder of Students for Trump, credibly accused of domestic abuse more than once. Corey Lewandowski. Steve Bannon. On and on and on. How many times does this have to happen before there are consequences?
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And here’s the thing, guys — I’m going to keep making this point: I don’t think these are partisan issues anymore. I’m tired of seeing everything through a partisan lens. I know I’m your no-BS Democratic strategist, but goddamn it — almost none of what we actually fight about is partisan anymore. People who put their hands on women or kids should not be allowed anywhere near power. Period. Democrat or Republican. If you’re in the Epstein files, I want you prosecuted. If you’re credibly accused of assault, I want you gone.
And it goes beyond allegations of abuse. Once you start looking through the lens of accountability, you see the exact same failure everywhere.
I’ve been screaming into the void about the McConnell situation for fifty days now — and that’s not a partisan issue either. It’s the same thing that happened with Dianne Feinstein. How many Democratic members have died in office? It’s one thing to be mad about Tom Kean disappearing for months, but we need to be equally outraged when it happens inside our own party.
We have real, serious problems in both parties. And the thing we actually need to rally around — the thing that has fundamentally broken our democracy — is that there are no consequences for these people anymore. That’s the throughline. That’s the disease. Everything else is just another symptom. There’s no gravity. They can steal whatever they want. They can hurt whoever they want. And they know they will never pay for it.
That problem is bigger than Trump. It existed long before him. He didn’t create it—he exploited it.
In fact, Trump has made it dramatically worse, and he keeps exposing the very rot of the system, but his MAGA movement is a symptom of a deeper disease. They treat politics like a game they can profit off of, where we each decide what to be outraged about based on the jersey the offender is wearing. That has to stop.
How is it possible that Max Miller — a man already credibly accused of domestic abuse before he ever got elected — wins a seat in Congress, then marries the daughter of a sitting Republican senator who, up until yesterday, was too scared to say a damn word about a man accused of beating his own child? How does that happen? How did the voters of Ohio not throw this asshole out? How did his colleagues let it slide?
Because the system protects itself. The staffer class protects the staffer class. The politician class protects the politician class. The donor class protects the donor class. It has to stop. We have to build a broad, wide-reaching coalition to take this country back from the structures rotting it from the inside — the ones letting so many people get hurt, stripped of their dignity physically, financially, and mentally, every single day, by the worst people among us.
This era of American politics is ending, one way or another. Trump will be gone as will so many others. And I’ll be honest: I don’t know that what’s coming is better. I really don’t. But I know we have a chance to make it better. So in a moment like this — when Max Miller and the Republicans might finally get the media shitstorm they deserve — we should stop and reflect on how we got here in the first place, and make damn sure it never happens again. Because if Max Miller is just another headline instead of the moment we finally demand consequences, then we’ll be right back here with someone else six months from now.
Hi Mike. A huge thanks to you for your courageous, moral consistency. It's a rare and precious thing in political commentary these days...
Yes!