I’m a Democratic strategist. I won’t stay silent about Graham Platner.

I am not a voter in Maine. Which is fortunate, because if I were, I don’t know what I would do. 

Last week, Planned Parenthood, an organization whose entire mission is protecting women, endorsed Graham Platner for the U.S. Senate. He had just won the Maine Democratic primary with 72 percent of the vote, and the party moved quickly to consolidate behind him. What no one seemed willing to pause for were the women who had stepped forward — without consultants, without a campaign apparatus, without anyone standing behind them — to say, simply, “This is what happened to me.”

I have spent weeks following this story. I have watched allegations, denials, explanations, interviews, and competing narratives unfold in real time. What has stayed with me is not the politics. It’s the women. 

As someone who has survived manipulation, intimidation and emotional abuse, I know what it feels like when a story lands somewhere deeper than politics. And I know what it feels like to hear descriptions of behavior that sound painfully familiar: The grabbing of shoulders during arguments. The atmosphere of intimidation. The volatility fueled by alcohol. The feeling of constantly questioning your own reality.  

People who have lived through these experiences recognize certain patterns immediately. That recognition is not proof. But it is not meaningless either. What troubles me most is how quickly our public conversations shift away from what women are saying and toward questioning why they are saying it. 

Why now? What is their motive? What do they stand to gain? As if public scrutiny, ridicule and accusations of dishonesty are rewards. As if being disbelieved is painless. The truth is that many women remain silent precisely because they know what comes next — their careers questioned, their credibility dismantled, their private lives turned into public fodder.  

Platner himself........

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