this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Graham's a little different. The things he has said and done are vile. In his case, it hinges much more on whether you think a person can change, and if they should be given a chance (as one of the rulers of our society, specifically) if they have changed.
People who claim that "people don't change" just scream to me "I haven't grown up at all, questioned my assumptions, or learned anything new since I was 20 or younger"
It's like trump bragging that he hasn't changed since he was 6. It's not a flex.
I think the majority of the people who leery of Platner (and aren't trolls/bots/propaganda spreaders) are thinking, and having trouble articulating, that politics is a very, very strong reason to 'hide your stripes.' Even if a person can change, it doesn't mean that they have just because they say they have. While I don't like career politicians, if someone does a run from local city councilor -> county position -> state position -> federal position, you can very easily see that they've put their money where their mouth is and you have a very good idea what they'll act like in the position you're voting for. When a candidate comes out of a quiet life, you don't have much to base a vote on except for words.
I'm not voting in any maine election any time soon, but I feel for anyone who is truly worried about the choice they're being asked to make. At least in my races, it's pretty obvious who the complete and utter asshole is.
I mean yeah, it takes a certain level of trust, especially when they don't have an established record of public service. But that's the case with any political candidate who comes out of nowhere, and I don't think it's particularly advantageous to always assume the worst about everyone unless they have a squeaky clean record.
That's how you end up with lukewarm robots like the DNC at the federal level. They're the only ones who can pass the purity tests at that point, cause they've never taken any risks or said anything controversial or taken a stand on a bold or untested position. No political innovation, no new ideas, no major progress, just status quo and "don't rock the boat."
Besides, as someone who grew up in a conservative household and had to learn on my own in adulthood that everything I was taught to believe was bullshit, and what to believe instead, I know on a very personal level that people can change and have a genuine awakening. And I know in a very real way how difficult it is to get people to take you seriously after you've done such a 180° on your political views.
I'll never run for office because I'd be afraid of someone who knew me in high school saying "Oh look at this ignorant thing he said when he was 15!" And then everyone would think that I'm bullshitting them about my socialist views and all of a sudden I'm being immortalized via internet memes as that guy who said something ignorant in the early 2010s or whatever.
I don't think it's a particularly healthy societal mentality to hold onto that shit so strongly.
There was a pretty good article (maybe it won a pulitzer? I can't remember now) about how and why social shaming went away as a punishment, framed around that one twitter post about africa that got someone fired while they were in a plane. Europe has the right idea with the 'right to be forgotten.'
Personally, as someone who, like you, has done a near complete 180 on political views from childhood idiocy to teenage mindless acceptance of the community's politics to becoming an actual thinking adult, I can agree about a person's capability to change. I can even easily imagine how easy it would be to change by reflecting (once away from others who were egging it on and socially agreeing pushing it as a good thing) on an experience as a guard in a war 'jail' that had documented horrors happen there.
That article sounds interesting, but I don't know the situation it's referencing. "Right to be forgotten" sounds like a good idea. At least for private citizens. Although social media makes that logistically difficult to implement.
Public officials should have to waive certain expectations of privacy in order to serve, but that should mostly focus on the present and future. Maybe their recent history during elections, but if someone has changed their political views then I don't see the benefit of digging up skeletons from prior decades, especially if they've already disavowed those views.
I think this is the article. Obviously it's older than most people's attention spans these days ;) It's also shorter than I remember it being, but maybe I'm confusing it with another one.
Okay, that is interesting, but some of those people really brought it upon themselves. I mean, a racialized joke about AIDS while on a layover on her way to Africa? Even if she explains later that the intent was to criticize the epistemic bubble of living in a first world country with white privilege, that satire just doesn't transfer over text very well. And she was the senior PR director of an international media company...
Still, the guy who propagated her ignorant tweet to his 15,000 followers was wrong for following up months later (after she had volunteered in Ethiopia for a month) when she got a new job. At that point it seems like harassment. Like, he claimed he didn't want to destroy her life and that she'd ultimately be fine... but he wouldn't let it die...
And he kinda deserved his own comeuppance when he got push-back for saying "Bring Back Bullying." Bullying is atrocious and should never be rationalized. And it doesn't cause people to conform to pro-social behavior, it only rewards anti-social behavior, so the whole notion is based on a fallacy anyway. Like, "Oh, if only the columbine shooters had been bullied harder then they wouldn't have gone postal." No, if they hadn't been bullied in the first place, then they wouldn't have gone postal.
Still, now that it's been over a decade since Sacco's public shaming, if she's learned her lesson, I think she should be able to return to a normal life without constant reminders of her mistakes.
The point isn't to excuse bigotry, hatred, ignorance, or intolerance. It's to understand that people make mistakes and can learn from them, and should be allowed to recover if they learn their lessons.
I think these quotes raise some good points though:
But the guy at a tech conference who whispered a crass joke to his buddy about big dongles? That case was way overblown. He wasn't a public figure. He didn't make a public statement. Yet one person who overheard and didn't like it decided to take a picture of him and post it with a synopsis of the joke? That's stretching credulity, and he shouldn't have lost his job over it. It wasn't meant to be a public comment, she wasn't intended to overhear, and plus if that's fairplay then literally anybody can take a photo of anyone and claim they said something whether they did or not, while stripping it of any mitigatory context. So that one was shitty.
The person who posted it didn't deserve to be doxxed and receive death threats over it, but characterizing the rest of the backlash she received as misogyny and the big spooky "men's rights activism" kinda misses the point. Power-tripping cause you have over a thousand followers and ruining a person's career because you overheard a tasteless joke that you didn't like (which wasn't even aimed at anyone) is not really okay...
It's a complex topic, but that only means it requires nuance, and an angry mob is incapable of nuance or impartiality.