Lily Macone lives in Lincolnville.

Over the past 11 months, I’ve been prodded by a male acquaintance of mine to attend urgent political meetings, “No Kings” rallies and last-minute door-to-door ventures for various political agendas.

When Graham Platner came on the scene a few months ago, this same acquaintance took up the torch to organize for the candidate with endless enthusiasm. Platner lawn signs sprang up like Halloween decorations, and friends and family posted rapturously on social media about Platner’s candor, his relatability, his image.

I’m a farmer in Midcoast Maine who grew up the daughter of journalists in the Washington, D.C., area. I’ve lived and breathed politics for as long as I remember. I’ve seen up close the power of a candidate who can captivate audiences, represent the values of voters and lift groups that have been systemically disenfranchised.

For some reason, Platner’s speeches on better representation for the working class weren’t landing with me (a member of the working class). Enter the revelation, from the depths of Reddit, of misogynistic, classist and homophobic diatribes from Platner, not to mention his Totenkopf look-alike tattoo.

I decided to read the posts myself, comb through the sources and review the claims on his knowledge about said tattoo. As I read the screen captures of the original posts and the testimonies of his former campaign manager, I had the sinking feeling of confirming something worse than I previously suspected.

Surely this should be the end of his campaign, I remember thinking. An eerie feeling soon replaced my surety. I had thought the same thing when the infamous “grab them by their p***y” audio of the-then candidate Donald Trump appeared before the 2016 election, and yet he was elected, and then reelected come 2024.

However, now that our proverbial chickens had come home to roost, and “No Kings” rallies were drawing hundreds of thousands of supporters, surely folks wouldn’t defend someone with a history of blatant misogyny and homophobia, no matter how convincing he had thus appeared.

Imagine my disappointment when the same acquaintance who had skipped work to attend the “No Kings” rallies, instead of considering the various vantage points in looking for an alternative to the candidates in the field, vociferously defended Platner with phrases like “Well, I think he explained it all very well” and “I think a lot of the media press is against him.”

I then observed friends on social media exalting Platner with phrases such as “Like you’ve never posted something you’ve regretted on the internet!” (No, actually, I have never published homophobic, racist, misogynistic ideas on the internet).

Is there any valid excuse for spreading hateful ideas? Moreover, spreading them as a young veteran on a platform like Reddit, which is frequented for advice, inspiration and validation by millions of young men (and women) in America? I’m stumped to understand how anyone could successfully “explain” away the actual impact of such posts.

When I said as much to my acquaintance, he responded with “All I hear right now is a hurt and scared woman.”

Cue the rage of a Smith College graduate, a queer woman working in a man’s field and a survivor of sexual assault.

I’m not hurt, and I’m sure as hell not scared. And neither is the rest of Maine, or America, who long for the sort of representation many of us have never experienced.  

The idea that my concerns are only coming from what is clearly perceived to be personal weakness (emotional injury, fear, womanhood) is not only insulting, but dangerous. The irony that someone protesting against invulnerable political figures in America could defend so ardently the vulnerabilities of another political candidate does not escape me.

We must let our politicians be vulnerable to criticism. We must hold them accountable for their impact, past and present, so that they are accountable to us in the future.