After the national revelation over the weekend that U.S. Senate hopeful Graham Platner early in his marriage was texting with other women—and that the texts were sexual in nature and the resulting pearl-clutching around that—I have become thoroughly convinced that the Civil Rights movement and other movements would never have happened if they had occurred in the era of smartphones, social media and watered-down journalism.
Since the release of this information that was initially reported by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, social media has been ablaze with calls from people (primarily outside of Maine) to not support the “philandering Nazi.” Though there are admittedly some supporters within the state who are deeply disappointed with the revelations—and while that is their right—after listening to Platner’s wife, Amy, and her heartfelt response to the situation, I find myself thinking: “Is this any of my business?” I am aware, though, that even with Amy addressing the issue, some think Platner is cowardly and letting his wife do his “dirty” work. Can you really win there? If she stays silent, people will put words in her mouth or assume she is fuming; if she speaks her own words and feelings, people will assume her husband is hiding behind her skirts, so to speak.
By her account, they dealt with the issues, they went to marital counseling, and they continue to have their own respective counselors. Despite our cultural fascination with marriage and the assumed standards for love, fidelity and all that, marriage is a messy business and only the two people within the marriage know all the details and agreements that matter to them.
While I initially was disappointed by the news, the fact is that this isn’t my marriage. To everyone projecting their thoughts and standards upon the Platner marriage, I think you need to step back. Amy hasn’t asked for our sympathy as his wife; in fact, what she has asked for is us to look beyond their marriage and focus on the issues.
These newest revelations about Platner speak to a larger issue for me: Some of the greatest change-agents in our nation’s history were personally very messy and frankly fucked-up people. In my 30-year career of social change work, I have met more than a few people who were awesome at their work but less so awesome at being good people or good partners or whatever.
The uncomfortable truth is that many of our greats who were involved in fighting for the privileges we have come to accept as our norms were deeply messy people, including many of them being philanderers.
Tales have swirled around for years about extramarital activity for greats such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. Even Delores Huerta’s recent reveal of being sexually assaulted by Cesar Chavez, as horrific as it is, speaks to the historic dark underbelly of much movement work in this country. In the aftermath of her statement, many—particularly women and non-binary folks—acknowledged the deep sexism and other ‘isms that still exist in many of these spaces.
I would like to think that in today’s world, we are working to make our movement spaces safer for everyone, so that no one should labor to create a better world while simultaneously stuffing down indignities, assaults, or harassment. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that the people in the work are necessarily making the same moral choices in their personal lives that we might make in ours.
While cheating on a spouse might be a red line for some and a disqualification, given the grave threats we face as a nation, I can’t say that it is my red line. As someone who was married 28 years between two marriages, I am very familiar with the complexity of marriage and how technology has made it easier to engage in questionable behavior. It doesn’t make it right, but it is the world we live in. I have known more than a few people who have cheated on their spouses and in most cases, the situations were more complex than most people assume. Which is why for me, I am choosing to honor Amy’s request to focus on the issues and not their marriage. At the end of the day, as long as Graham isn’t breaking any laws or facing accusations of sexual assault or harassment, it isn’t my concern—according to all the information that has been made public, the texts were consenual.
However, while the media was busy laying out the Planter’s marriage for all to gape at, it failed to mention the greater threats to all of us.
This weekend, while we were clutching our pearls over Graham Platner, inmates at an ICE holding facility in New Jersey—Delaney Hall in Newark—were on a hunger strike to protest the inhumane treatment within the facility. For the last week there have been protestors outside of the facility and tensions escalated further when the relatively newly elected Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill, decided that New Jersey state police would take over policing duties outside Delaney from the ICE agents in an effort to de-escalate things. Unfortunately sending in the state police did not achieve that goal and on Sunday evening things escalated as state police in riot gear kettled protestors, resulting in dozens of arrests, including the arrests of journalists. By all accounts, Sherrill’s decision to send in the state police worsened the situation, which is saying a lot given the hostility that we see with ICE agents.
We are living in a timeline where the media is manipulating our actions and responses and disinformation is thriving (and also true information being blown out of proportion to distract us from far worse activities). If we have any hope of pushing back effectively against what we are dealing with in this country, we need to get grounded. We need to decide if we are willing to accept imperfect people who do step forward to be leaders or we need to start leading ourselves. We don’t need the abusers of yesterday or people like them leading; let me be clear on that. But let us also not automatically conflate imperfect perfect with abusers.
The thing is that it is increasingly clear in a nation and world where we faced a global pandemic and didn’t even give ourselves time and space to grieve what was lost that we have become a tightly wound society that seeks perfection as a way of control. We lost control for a while and now we want to make the world make sense by applying extra control.
I worry that we are spending so much time and attention on this Senate race that we are forgetting that new senators and the midterms alone are not going to save us from what has been happening for the last 18 months in this country nor what is ahead of us. Elections and new senators are simply part of the toolkit of harm reduction and the process of change.
Here in Maine, the abductions by ICE have started to pick up again but unlike the enhanced activity we saw in January, outside of organizing spaces, no one is aware of this fact; the media has moved on. A friend of my son’s, a fellow musician, was recently picked up in Portland, Oregon, by ICE; he is currently being held in Tacoma, Wash. These stories abound but are you even aware of them?
I am not saying the Senate race doesn’t deserve our attention and that people shouldn’t be concerned about any of the candidates’ foibles or mistakes. But I fear we are putting all our eggs in a single faulty basket and no matter what, if we don’t put more of our own skin in the game, things aren’t going to get better. Our collective survival is a group project and after the last 18 months, it is clear that our issues are bigger than red or blue, as we see even blue states and their elected officials act in ways that feel more aligned with the formerly moderate or slightly right of center GOP.
In the end, Platner still has my support because at the end of the day, I am looking for someone to fight against what we are facing and to work to create a country where we all matter. The standards I need in my elected officials are not necessarily the standards I want in a friend or romantic partner and that is okay with me. As messy and complicated as Platner is, I think he is the best choice. In some ways and some times, we need imperfect people to dance with the sheer evil that is being thrust upon us all.
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Image by Yi Liu, obtained via Unsplash
