Lydia “Massive Prideful Female”

Correct, because people aren’t actually that stupid. Nobody likes posers and phonies and plenty of people, even very politically unsophisticated ones, are good at sniffing them out. One thing that all actually talented politicians have in common is that they understand this.

And tbc, there isn’t even anything wrong with that per se. It’s (ideally) producing a sustainable, quality product for your local economy which is fine and good thing to do. But it’s not working class!

I don’t even really get how owning a business that is a purveyor of a luxury food item for local restaurants is “working class drag” to begin with tbh. That honestly seems extremely rich kid-coded to me, like starting an organic, grass-feed meat operation or something.

I agree, “Nazi tattoo” is pithy and attention-grabbing and so it’s become the main story but I kind of wish it hadn’t. Because the context of the rest of his life and choices is at least as important, if not more.

He’s not even an “oysterman” or whatever image he wants to conjure with that language. He’s not some folksy, weathered working man braving the seas in the boat his grandfather’s built to make a living. He owns a small business that sells a luxury product.

Bush’s illegal more that he protested before deciding to fight.

Neither smear seems that effective with this clown, unfortunately.

Yep, it’s very Choate-adjacent.

“Working class people often do not graduate college and shiftless New England prep school failsons also often do not graduate college, I cannot tell the difference between these two things.”

And Hotchkiss isn’t looking for a bunch of local swamp Yankees with no potential big donor relatives either.

And apparently who also “never graduated college,” as if that means the same thing for a privileged child of educated, professional parents as it does for a poor kid whose parents never went to college either. Like…those are not the same!

Yeah, and Hotchkiss isn’t even for the kids who are rich and brainy, like Exeter or Andover or something. Just the ones who are rich. If you know the Northeast, it’s a whole vibe.

She is already in her 40s so I’m guessing it’s something she has moved on from already. I hope it was on her own terms.

I really hope she didn’t give up having the baby she apparently expected they’d have because he didn’t want to give her that level of commitment. But sadly, I have seen women I know do stuff like that for dudes like this.

her than for him. It would have been him giving up a lot of freedom and autonomy so she could be a parent and…that sure doesn’t seem to be his thing. I hope it’s just that she changed her own mind and decided to be childfree by choice but I have unfortunately seen women know do the other thing.

I wonder how much else she’s accepted. Like, she said she expected they’d have a baby. They didn’t. I have to wonder if that’s because he would never commit to it because he had other priorities. He already has kids from previous relationships so having another would probably have been more for

I’m not sure it’s why they broke up for a while—at least, what she wrote about it years ago cited other reasons. But it seems that he as good as said it was why his other marriages ended, except he framed it as his exes’ fault for being jealous. Ugh.

I def remember thinking “I really hope Aham is as good as she makes him sound because she has more than usual riding on this relationship at this point.”

I of course do not actually know any of these people but my guess is that he is sometimes genuinely great and the rest of the time you spend trying to make him be great again, wondering what you’re doing wrong that it isn’t working.

Wait, we’re not calling the 1991 one the Gulf War anymore? God, I am old.

I’m not disagreeing my with you? I’m not saying he can’t get richer.

He’s already rich but yeah.

If Platner had otherwise stellar achievements, I wouldn’t be okay with the tattoo but I’d at least get other people’s desire to explain it away as youthful stupidity or a dark period. But there’s not a single thing in his resume that makes me want to give him power. The whole thing is a dark period.

Very true but also there are a LOT of issues besides the Nazi tattoo! The Blackwater contractor thing, the fact that he played at being a war protester *before* joining the military to fight the same war, despite having many other choices as a rich kid, the tattoo is the tip of the iceberg.

It actually hurts other pro-Palestine politicians like Mamdani and Abughazaleh to lump Platner in with them and pretend like the bad-faith accusations of antisemitism lobbed at them are similarly bad-faith when lobbed at Platner. This is why someone like Platner can poison a progressive coalition.

reasonable he was and how controlling and immature she was and now she’s come to see how right he was about everything. Yikes.

Tbh, I’d feel differently if she ever once held her husband accountable for bad behavior. If she talked about this like her hurt and anger was justified but she moved through it and liked what she found on the other side, that would be one thing. Instead, it’s all about how very long-suffering and

Yeah, I remember her writing about her proposal and wedding and it all sounded to so sweet and I was happy for her. I’m sad to read the sequel…

What would be cool is if they are together without him in 5 years. I mean, she may well be actually lovely!

I’m open to there being context there that I’m not privy to but the broader issue to me is that just sounds like an absolutely miserable way to live. Like, having that kind of sickening dread hanging over you all the time with your partner? It just makes me sad for her.