Accused rapist Graham Platner was ripped apart on social media Wednesday over his whiny, rambling video message announcing the end of his Senate bid in Maine and blaming everyone but himself.
Platner’s pathetic 11-minute-long rant – in which he blamed the “corporate media,” the “political establishment” and even his support for “Medicare for all” as reasons for the downfall of his scandal-scarred campaign – was panned as needless and “narcissistic” by X users tired of the former oyster farmer’s antics.
“His campaign literally ended with a whimper,” conservative commentator Ryan James Girdusky said of Platner’s self-pitying monologue.
The failed candidate uploaded the “woe is me” clip announcing his withdrawal after a woman he previously dated, Jenny Racicot, publicly alleged that he drunkenly raped her at her Maine home in 2021 despite her repeated pleas to stop. He denied the allegation.
“This video is more embarrassing than the Nazi tattoo,” Emily Zanotti, a friend of one Platner’s exes accusing him of misconduct, tweeted.
“Graham Platner announces the real victim in all of this is Graham Platner,” right-wing influencer Western Lensman posted on X. “Saved you 11 minutes.”
“TLDR: Campaign suspended and a whole bunch of bluster,” read a post from the Chicks on the Right X account.
Another social media user joked Platner was “trying to submit this for documentary short at the Oscars.”
“Coincidentally, 11 minutes is how long it would take to get a PBR at the Tune Inn when Platner was working because he’d be jawing someone at the other end of the bar who was doing a slow step away,” Doug Heye said of the former DC bartender’s long-winded video.
The failed candidate’s lack of self-awareness throughout the video, as well as his insistence that his ex-girlfriend was lying about being raped by him, left many stunned and puzzled.
“It is not the establishment’s fault that your ex lover accused you of raping her,” political consultant Micah Erfan noted.
“Narcissistic sociopath,” conservative radio talk show host Larry O’Connor said in response to Platner’s video.
Hutch, a popular lefty streamer, called Platner a “piece of s–t manipulator conman” after listening to his exit speech.
“He entered the stage lying, and he leaves the stage lying. He’s a really bad guy,” former Republican congressman Joe Walsh tweeted.
“He’s delusional enough to think this is a moment to preserve political capital and sermonize as a self-styled leader rather than his final opportunity to accept moral culpability for the crisis he has created with his poor judgment, at the very least. A coward to the very end,” read another social media user’s blistering criticism.
Veteran political columnist Ed Morrissey described the video as “the most arrogant display I’ve seen in a long while.”
“He didn’t lead a movement; he answered a casting call. His entire narrative has been a lie. And he has the nerve to cast himself as the victim here,” Morrissey argued.
Platner bemoaning that “we live in a political system that is not built for normal people” also rankled X users.
“Idk dude, most normal people aren’t accused of repeated sexual misconduct and most normal people don’t get Nazi tattoos,” Project Liberal board member Joshua Reed Eakle posted.
“’The establishment framed me for rape because I support Medicare For All’ is maybe the craziest thing this guy’s said yet,” journalist Tim Rice wrote.
Former Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod argued, “Platner built an admirable movement. But there was nothing admirable about the way he said goodbye.”
