After the recent ugly revelations about Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner, I figured I’d look at who else was in the race besides 77-year-old Governor Janet Mills.
The most interesting candidate by a good measure was Daira-Smith-Rodriguez, a US Air Force civilian contracting officer. Like Platner, Smith-Rodriguez is relatively young; like him she opposes the genocide in Gaza (which she calls a genocide) and like him she has condemned America’s oligarchy. Her job involved government oversight and auditing—so while she’s a political neophyte like Platner, she has significantly more relevant experience than he does. She’s also a union member—which means she is actually working class, unlike Platner, who is the grandson of a famous architect, the son of a lawyer, and who owns his own oyster-farming company.
“America is not a business, no matter what they tell you,” Smith-Rodriguez said in her campaign video. “We’re dreamers and patriots and families. We’re one people with one more chance.”
That’s an inspiring and inclusive message, and Smith-Rodriguez had my attention—briefly. Unfortunately, I had barely learned her name before she dropped out of the race.
The rationale for her decision only increased my respect for her. She explained that she was suspending her campaign because she was sexually assaulted in the military, and she had been deeply disturbed by Platner’s dismissal of the reality and evils of rape in the service. She was probably thinking specifically of a social media post in which Platner said:
In today’s current climate, when every whisper of a misplaced hand brings down a feature length film, anyone who actually thinks the military is purposefully covering up rape to save the career of some god damn [captain], is clearly both an idiot and junior enough in rank or life experience to think it matters.
Platner has disavowed these and other homophobic, racist, and sexist comments, insisting that he has changed and that he is not the cruel and hurtful things he said online ten years ago. That’s certainly to the good. However, given that Platner had a Nazi tattoo until last week, I think it is reasonable for those in communities Platner insulted and dismissed to question his good faith and his commitments.
In that vein, Smith-Rodriguez explained on her website, “as a survivor of military sexual assault, I cannot, in good conscience, indicate support or remain silent if there is even a possibility that someone who questions the reality of this crisis could be elevated to the United States Senate. It is simply too great a risk to those who still need a voice to fight for them.” In order to forestall the possibility of Platner’s election, she endorsed Janet Mills.
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Who is punished for sexual assault?
Again, I think Smith-Rodriguez’s actions here are courageous and powerful. Coming out as a victim of sexual assault is always difficult; it’s even more fraught in the context of challenging a popular male political figure (and Platner remains very popular in the state.) More, Daira-Rodriguez is prioritizing solidarity with other survivors over her own political aspirations and hopes. By dropping out of the race in this way, she is demonstrating—ironically and painfully—exactly the sort of character you would like to see in a Senator.
The irony is only more painful because it is not surprising. It is very common for survivors of sexual assault to be punished while perpetrators and apologists suffer few consequences. Trump was held liable for sexual assault and accused of sexual harassment and abuse by dozens of women, yet there he squats in the Oval Office.
Sexual assault survivors are often stigmatized and blamed for their own assaults; this is so pervasive that it often prevents survivors from accessing health resources or from holding their attackers accountable. As just one example, Felicia Sonmez a sexual assault survivor, was barred from reporting on sexual assault cases by the Washington Post, on the grounds that her experience made her unobjective. Similarly, a 2018 survey of the military found that 6% of women in the services had experienced sexual assault; of those who reported the assault, 51% said they were ostracized by peers; 34% said they experienced maltreatment; and 23% said they were targeted for professional reprisals.
This is the context in which Platner argued that sexual assault survivors do not experience stigma and insisted that survivors were lying when they said the military covered up assaults and rapes. It’s also the context in which Platner’s disgusting rape denial has not forced him out of the race. The only person whom Platner’s rape denial has forced out of the race, in fact, is a sexual assault survivor.
Plenty of blame to go around
Obviously, it speaks poorly of Platner that he engaged in rape denialism to begin with. I think it also reflects poorly on those who continue to support him (like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders).
While many of those supporters have talked about the importance of giving Platner a second chance, Smith-Rodriguez starkly demonstrates that when a second chance for rape denialits involves high level political office, that can mean no chance at all for those who have experienced sexual assault. It’s important to allow people to change; you don’t want to punish people forever for saying ugly things. But when change doesn’t come with any concrete effort at reparations, and doesn’t come with real support for victims and survivors, then you’re not really broadening the tent so much as you’re kicking out the most vulnerable.
What would reparations and support look like? There are a range of possible answers. But in this case, it seems relevant that Sanders and the national press rushed to endorse Platner—a white guy with less relevant experience—rather than giving Smith-Rodriguez—also progressive, also young, also inspiring—equal time and attention.
Nor can you say that the centrists did much better. Janet Mills does have a lot of experience and a strong record of electoral success in Maine. But she’s also 77, and her current polling is not great. Minority leader Chuck Schumer could have sought out some other options as well. Did Schumer or Sanders sit down with Smith-Rodriguez at any point? Did journalists? There are no serious profiles of her that I could find.
Perhaps that’s all just chance and luck; Platner happened to blow up and get a lot of attention early; Smith-Rodriguez just wasn’t in the right place at the right time. Luck, though, is often about privilege—and I’d argue that Platner’s very popular performance of anti-establishment swagger is hard to separate from his cishet male whiteness. Centrists, progressives, journalists, and voters, were all uninterested in a young, non establishment progressive female candidate. The result was that Smith-Rodriguez decided that the only way in which she could advance her values and stay true to her experience was to drop out.
Again, the fact that honor and integrity are a losing proposition in American politics is not exactly shocking to anyone unfortunate enough to be living in the shadow of the Trump regime. It’s still a depressing outcome though. I hope Smith-Rodriguez has success in seeking another political office, or in whatever endeavor she chooses to pursue next. I hope Maine manages to figure out a way to choose someone for Senate who does not betray the people of the state or the nation. And I hope somehow we as a country can do better at supporting survivors, at least to the extent that we stop seeing them primarily as inconvenient barriers to the election of one political fave or another.
I hope she decides to run for something, maybe the Maine statehouse. She sounds like a fine Senate candidate already, but Maine would be helped if she were anywhere in state government. And maybe she’ll still win up in the US Senate someday.
I'd never heard of Smith-Rodriguez before, and am very sorry about it. She sounds like just the sort of solid, capable person of whom this country's public life has a crying need.