Andrew Bare

5 Aug

Ross Douthat’s review of this movie is going to be…weird.

gwen howerton@kissphoria.bsky.social

i'm locked in on this film sorry to anyone else

I think one of the lessons from the Platner debacle is that it's a very bad idea to valorize -- or, in Platner's case, to fetishize -- a candidate's worst traits and treat them as evidence of "authenticity."

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And moving forward, I think it'll be vital to recognize flaws for what they are -- *flaws*. Bad things to overcome, not virtues to celebrate. "This shit in my past is bad, and I feel bad about it, but here's how/why I've changed and what I can do for you as your representative."

And not, "The shit in my past is awesome, it makes me awesome, and if you disagree, you're just an Establishment eunuch."

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For the Grimm/Klippenstein/Stoller group, and to a lesser extent for the Pod Save guys, Platner's worst traits were *good things*. The Nazi tattoo, the violent and sexist Reddit posts, the somewhat incoherent political/ideological past, multiple life failures, the poor history with women....

Those were *good* things. They meant Platner was real, authentic. He wasn't a "smoothgroin." He had lived a real life. Platner didn't have flaws to accept and overcome -- he was a Real Man, as proven by his countless screw-ups. They celebrated him for all of his worst traits.

There's been a lot of talk about how Democrats need to accept rougher, less traditional candidates. Candidates who have led imperfect lives and made mistakes. And there's a lot of truth to that.

But there's a difference between accepting a candidate's mistakes, flaws, rough edges, with grace and forgiveness, acknowledging that a candidate can live an imperfect life and still have value to contribute in public office, and celebrating those flaws as virtues and positive goods.

I keep hearing how "sloppy" the Chiefs were last night, and I don't know, I don't think that lines up with the game I watched. They didn't commit reckless turnovers. Receivers weren't dropping passes. Linemen weren't missing blocks. It was a great offensive performance, arguably the best since 2022.

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I don't know, I just think last night's game is hard to contextualize. A great offensive performance, plenty to like on defense. Just a few bad moments at the worst moments. We like to narrativize these things, and so it's easy to say, "They were sloppy, that's why they lost and deserved to lose."

Andy Reid has always been the most widely mocked great head coach in the NFL, and he's really come in for it this year with the slow start. So it's tempting to blame last night on "sloppiness," which is always the coach's fault. But I think that's a wild over-simplification.