How We Got Here: ‘Susan Collins, One of the Most Evil People in Public Life’ : The Other McCain

Posted on | June 1, 2026 | No Comments

When I wrote about Trump Derangement Syndrome over the weekend, it was while following the discourse over the latest scandalous Graham Platner revelations. These are certainly not the first such revelations, nor will they be the last, as GOP operatives reportedly have a vast pile of opposition research on Mr. Nazi Tattoo they’re waiting to unload when the time is right. But the reaction from liberals to what came out over the weekend was to double-down, to dig their entrenchments deeper, to rationalize the necessity of defending Platner at all costs, no matter what.

The author of that remarkable sentence is a columnist for The Nation, and when he got ratioed, his response was to double down again.

She is easily the highest-value senator for the right, even if most of their rank and file on this platform are too dimwitted to appreciate that value. If you think she’s an affable centrist and therefore not worth hating, you do not understand how anything works.

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) May 31, 2026

“TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!” The deranged obsession so warps David Klion’s perception that, when challenged on his over-the-top rhetoric, his response is to post a syllogism, the first premise of which is, “Republicans are evil,” and believes that he has thereby vanquished his critics.

His defense of Platner will not suffice:

The Democratic primary in Maine is June 9, less than two weeks away, and the question now is whether Graham Platner will get shoved under the party’s bus before it’s too late to find another candidate to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Hit by scandal after scandal in recent weeks, Platner’s status as “rising star” is now at risk because Democrats have belatedly realized that there might be even more damaging revelations to come — worse than his SS Totenkopf tattoo, which somehow Democrats had convinced themselves wasn’t really a scandal at all. What they’re realizing now is that Republican sources weren’t just bragging when they told Marc Halperin that their opposition research files on Platner were so toxic that he was not only guaranteed to lose to Collins, but “he’ll have to leave the state.” Frantic social-media drama from Democrats in recent days suggests that party insiders have confirmed what those GOP operatives were hinting at — Platner is unelectable; if he is the Democrat on the ballot in November, Collins will win in a landslide. . . .

You can read the rest of my latest Substack article (it’s free) and if you could, please subscribe while you’re over there.

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