A Democrat Senate candidate in Maine gets busted for sexting multiple women, has a Nazi-associated tattoo, and posted vile things about a wounded soldier — and The View's takeaway is that men in general are the problem. Not Graham Platner specifically. Not Democrats. Just... men. All of you. Your husband, your dad, your neighbor Bob who mows his lawn on Saturdays.
You really can't make this stuff up. Actually, you don't have to — The View does it for you five days a week.
Monday's episode saw the hosts react to the Graham Platner sexting scandal with the kind of gender-wide indictment that would get any conservative thrown off social media. Whoopi Goldberg kicked things off with the deep analysis we've come to expect: "Baby, these men are having the hardest time." Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin followed up with, "I know. Are men okay?"
Profound stuff, ladies.
Goldberg continued her lecture, telling the male species at large, "Y'all are out of control! Every time we turn around somebody" — and then trailed off into the kind of vague hand-waving that passes for commentary on that show. Ana Navarro piled on, suggesting the problem is systemic: "I think we feel like that because also this year we have" — followed by more gesturing at the general concept of men existing.
Sunny Hostin, never one to miss a chance to catastrophize, declared that "our country is in grave, grave peril." Because of a man cheating on his wife with multiple women. From a Democrat. Who also has a Nazi tattoo. But sure, Sunny — the whole republic is teetering.
To her credit — and I almost choked typing that — Sara Haines was the lone voice who actually addressed the specific human who did the specific bad thing. "This man should be nowhere near Congress," Haines said. Notice the key word: "this man." Not "all men." Not "your husband." This one. The one with the Nazi ink and the explicit texts.
Let's review the Platner highlight reel, shall we? Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate from Maine, was exposed after his own wife, Amy Gertner, disclosed his sexting affairs to the campaign. He'd been sending explicit texts to multiple women. He has a Nazi tattoo. He made offensive posts about a wounded American soldier. This is a guy running for the United States Senate as a Democrat.
Now imagine — just close your eyes and imagine — a Republican candidate with a Nazi tattoo who got caught sexting multiple women while his wife blew the whistle. Would The View say "are men okay?" They'd say his name 47 times in one segment. They'd demand every Republican in America denounce him by sundown. They'd have a graphic with his face on it for six weeks.
But Platner's a Democrat, so suddenly it's a meditation on masculinity. The party affiliation disappears. The Nazi tattoo gets a footnote. The individual becomes a gender. It's the most predictable deflection in television — and The View runs it like clockwork every time one of their own steps in it.
We don't have a man problem. We have a Democrat accountability problem. And five women on a couch aren't going to talk their way out of it.
