The political piling on of Graham Platner of Maine is an insult to all people, with many attacks being orchestrated by Right Wing/Christian Nationalist operatives weakening Women Rights for decades.
Jun 12, 2026
(Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifying under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018, concerning her sexual assault allegation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Despite Dr. Blasey-Ford’s compelling, credible, non-partison and under oath testimony, Maine Senator Susan Collins cast the deciding vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the US Supreme Court. Four years later, on June 24, 2022, Justice Kavanaugh—who told Senator Collins he believed Roe v. Wade was settled law, voted with the Court’s right-wing majority to overturn the 50-year old decision which gave women autonomy over their own health care decisions. It was the single most damaging blow to Women’s Rights in half-a-century in the United States. Contrast the sworn Congressional testimony—under penality of perjury—of Dr. Blasey-Ford, with the unfounded accusations made by GOP operative Lyndsey Fifield, a long-time employee of the Extreme Right Wing Heritage Foundation—the authors of Project 2025, a religious screed against Women’s Rights and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,—which crusaded for decades for the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Fifield also led a group of pro-Trump Republicans to support Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court in 2018, and campaigned for Susan Collins, Graham Platner’s opponent, for Senator from Maine. Fifield’s statements were politically motivated, extremely biased, and made on social media and to the press,, where she was not under oath, nor under penalty of perjury for false ore misleading statements.)
((In a column released on June 12 across multiple media platforms, the brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Melinda Henneberger, who has written for the Kansas City Star and the Sacremento Bee , presents her perspective of “The Platner Problem: When Principles Meet Power.”
The column, which is easily accessible on Substack or via Google, could just as well have been headlined: “The Platner Problem: When People of Principle Who Care Deeply About Women and Women’s Rights are Manipulated by Malevolent Forces Dedicated to Destroying What They Care About.”
Melinda Henneberger’s writing and perspectives on life and humanity are often superb, but in the case of her writing concerning Graham Platner—in the context of decades of blatant destruction of human rights, and women’s health care equity which have been central goals of the Heritage Foundation, the GOP, Christian Nationalists and the Trump Administration—Henneberger’s writing is woefully short of facts, and long on comparisons that are not based in the lived reality of what’s going on in this country regarding economic injustice and civil & human rights—the biggest victims of which are women, the poor, people of color and the LGBTQ community.
I posted a streamlined version of this rebuttal to Henneberger’s column on her Substack page, and offer my fuller response here for my own readers. Henneberger is an important voice for all to hear, and because of her great credibility in the past, it is imperative that those of us who respect her abilities & insights, but disagree with her conclusions, speak out loudly and clearly, while freedom of expression still exists in the United States.
Here is my response, expanded for my own social media:
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“Melinda: This column is so unscrupulously foul on so many levels. First, let’s examine some fundamental elements of fairness I expect from a Pulitzer Prize winning writer/journalist:
1. Did you go to Maine? 2. Have you interviewed Platner? His wife? 3. Did you interview Hannah Pingree, the young, progressive Democrat running for Governor? 4. Did you interview Representative Chellie Pingree, the long time women’s right advocate whose family has deep roots in the State, and she has long been a leader of Progressives nationwide? 5) Did you interview in person the ethically challenged Lyndsey Fifield, long-time political operative for the Heritage Foundation and opponent of Women’s Rights?
I expect nothing less from a writer of your stature and ability, yet you tell us you divined this perspective from a retreat, not from speaking with Maine citizens. That’s like Trump saying he knows “cheating in elections,” just because he knows it. Where’s your testing of the credibility of your sources, and your information?
Secondly, your Nader comparison is not even close to reality and ripped apart from any historical context. Yes Nader, and Susan Sarandon, were wrong in 2000, especially because the public records of Gore and Bush on all fundamental questions of human rights , and the composition of the Judiciary, were miles apart. Even those of us activists who detested Bill Clinton, and his sexual abuse of Monica Lewinsky and sense of arrogant entitlement, saw the clear difference between the political and personal philosophies of Clinton (Bill) and Gore.
Many of us ripped into Nader for being so narrowly focused on corporate influence in both parties, and being blind to the difference between the two Presidential Candidates on social justice issues, human rights, environmental justice, and the composition of the nation’s Federal Courts. Your brief plane ride of epiphany next to Nader, ignores all nuance and the depth of those differences, as Nader did. And, to make matters worse, you are doing the same kind of shallow, out-of-context reasoning that Nader did, which gave us George W. Bush, the War in Iraq, Justice John Roberts Justice Samuel Alito, and the cratering of the US economy costing millions of people their homes and livelihoods..
Before we even get to Susan Collins sell out of women by enabling Brett Kavanaugh, an accused sex offender, to become a Supreme Court Justice, it’s important to note that It was George W. Bush, guided by Karl Rove, Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt, who gave us John Roberts and Sam Alito, two of the most destructive voices on Voting , Civil and Human rights since Justice Roger Taney and his decision on Dred Scott. Nicole Wallace, who now Podcasts on “The Best People,” along with Schmidt, a self-righteous, self-aggrandizing scold, led the campaign out of the White House to put both Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. I’m not even mentioning their cheerleading for Sarah Palin. They were merely doing what they were told by their boss—indefensible from a moral standpoint, especially when two decades later the extraordinary damage done by Roberts and Alito, has ripped apart the US Constitution and this country’s desultory attempt to civilize itself on Civil Rights.
Even such a civil rights advocate like Joe Biden bears responsibilty for enabling the Supreme Court to be poisoned by not giving Anita Hill’s testimoney enough credibility, nor giving her Congressional protection, and running away fron the false and performative “racism” claims pushed by Clarence Thomas—himself an enemy of civil rights for others— and the deeply cynical forces of racism in this country—not unlike what’s being done by the Heritage Foundation and Christian Nationalists on the matter of misogyny right now, in Maine. Those groups of trolls and troglodytes wrote the book on mistreating women, winked at rape and sexual harassment laws, undermined women’s economic equality, and are actively working to turn the clock back in this country to before the time women were granted the right to vote.
Some of us, going back 30 years, excoriated Biden for his abject failure as the then- Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mario Cuomo, with whom I worked at the time, was furious over Biden’s failure to use his position to defend Anita Hill and her testimony, and his outrage of such terrible timidity on Biden’s part came close to pushing Cuomo to overcome his personal misgivings, and run for President.
You ignore all of this history going back some 30 years, which made Susan Collins support of Kavanaugh—even more egregious—despite her constant blathering of giving nothing but lip service to the urgency of maintaining the health care and human rights protections of Roe v. Wade.
Some of us who crusaded for a Women’s Right to choose going back over 50 years, to when New York State passed it’s liberalized abortion law in 1970—3 years before Roe. v. Wade—find Collins caving in to 50 years of women’s health care, and civil rights progress, unconscionable—not to mention her 90% voting record in concert with the most misogynistic federal administration in US history.
NONE of that forgives Platner’s stupid , offensive decisions about insensitive,, tough-guy tattoos, unacceptable sexting, and misognyistic comments. Yet, you repeatedly glide over the clear political motivation of his primary accuser, a GOP right wing operative, out of the Roger Stone school, who worked for the most anti-women GOP organization of the past 40 years, the Heritage Foundation.
I suggest you re-readProject 2025, it’s attacks on DEI, on women, people of color and the LGBTQ community. To write as much about Platner’s past—without examining precisely where his primary accuser is coming from, is not “victim blaming”—since her public support for Heritage, Kavanaugh and Collins make her far from an innocent victim. Fifield is a perpetrator of pernicious policies against women’s rights. She is no Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and Platner is no Jeffey Epstein, Donald Trump or any other of the malevolent misogynists and pedophile protectors who have changed laws and bastardized institutions—like the military—to flagrantly discriminate against women. How can you ignore those actual, practical, catastrophic consequences of Lyndsey Fifield’s well-funded political activity over the past decade?
NONE of this occurs in a vacuum, nor without historical and personal context, yet you continually bulldoze all of that concering Collins, and her political and financial cronies campaigning against Platner, under the guise of “misogyny” when their own actual enacted policies have caused grave harm and been violent to women’s rights These duiplicitous, cynical, abusers of fairness and justice gave us Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court; covered up the Epstein files and Trump’s involvement in them, ripped apart Roe. v. Wade protections at the federal level and in state after state, and are working hard bury women’s rights back to the Dark Ages, How can you ignore all this?
Finally, your writing fails to mention the other major source of opposition to Platner coming from AIPAC, because of his outspoken opposition to Israel’s Genocide in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, his strong statements about cutting off all US military aid to Israel, and his determination to lead the Democrats into taking a powerful anti-war position. With Susan Collins unblemished record of supporting the past four wars, and of unquestioningly doing AIPAC’s bidding on Israel, how can you not examine this as a motivation to bring Platner down, and disenfranchise the voters of Maine?
As a superb journalist, I am suprised you have not questioned the integrity of the New York Times assigning reporter Katie Glueck, a past “AIPAC Activist of the Year” to cover BOTH the NYC Mayoral Campaign of Zoran Mamdani—where support for Israel was a key issue—AND the campaign of Graham Platner for Senator from Maine, when his criticism of AIPAC and Israel—and Susan Collins slavish support— is very well known. How did that egregiouis violation of journalistic integrity escape your notice? Does it matter to you that the Times reporter has a political axe to grind against Platner, as does the Heritage Foundation operative whose unverified statements Glueck relies upon? How can the working women and men of Maine not feel that cultural elites outside of their own communities and billionaire-backed financial interests are working overtime to keep them down?
I challenge you to layout, side-by-side, what Platner has done and said about women, next to what Brett Kavanagugh (and Justices Thomas, Roberts & Alito) have done.
I challenge you to research and write about the extraordinary destruction of human and civil rights, of women’s health care, and economic justice, being implemented right before our eyes every single day by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, Christian Nationalists, and the Trump Administration, and their enablers, like Senator Susan Collins.