The Odd Codpiece Politics of (Some of) the Left
Journalist Ken Klippenstein recently wrote a piece calling typical politicians "smoothgroins," which prompted me to imagine what we would call the opposite: codpiece
Journalist Ken Klippenstein recently wrote a piece calling typical politicians "smoothgroins," which prompted me to imagine what we would call the opposite: codpiece.
This is not really a piece about Graham Platner or anything he has said or done. My position on him is pretty well known by now, and you can read my thoughts from when the Nazi tattoo controversy first broke if you'd like.
There are wide swaths of people who you'll find defending Platner. You got the anti-Israel leftists, who probably correctly see an important ally in the fight against military aid to Israel.
You have the Maine local Democrats who have long suffered under the reign of Susan Collins, one of the most chickenshit people in the Senate and who has held office for 29 years.
There's also the every day Democrats who simply want to take back the Senate and see any and all criticism of Platner as working against that goal.
I too want the things all of these people want in politics, I'm just not sure Platner will deliver them. Luckily for me, I don't have to decide what I do with my vote, I haven't been a Maine voter in 8 years.
Instead of getting into the Platner weeds once again, I want to focus in on one specific segment of his online defenders: lib and lefty men in online media.
Social media politics guy Kyle Kulinski tweeted lasted week that he didn't care if Platner sexted his mom, he would still support the guy. On Bluesky, I compared his statement to the women who declared themselves "Cuomosexual" in the midst of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's fights with President Trump in Trump's first term.
Secular Talk
Perhaps most bizarrely of all, journalist Ken Klippenstein, who has been on my podcast before, wrote a weird piece last week about how a Platner win would be a strike against the "smoothgroin" politics of the Democratic party. The piece compares other men in the Democratic party with a Ken doll, which is of course smooth plastic where the doll should have a penis.
(Barbie also has a smooth groin where her vulva would be but that's neither here nor there)
What struck me about these defenses of Platner is that they are yearning for a more masculine aesthetic in their politics. They desperately want the left to return to the old hammer and sickle days of the early Soviet Union when propaganda depicted communism with a blonde haired blue eyed fit man toiling in the fields or the factory.
The combination of Platner's gravelly voice, blonde hair, and Downeast Maine oysterman appearance makes these guys wet. The candidate had them in the first frame of he his slickly produced ad announcing his candidacy.
This is the common through line of so much of Platner's media support, from Kulinski to the Pod Save guys singing his praises.
These guys want you to know they're through with the soft, feminine, effete, Democratic party, and they think Platner is the way back to the politics of rough and tumble unionism and sex appeal. To hell with supporting trans rights or bothering about with abortion access, we need a left that puts the man first baby.
If the rest of us are practicing "smoothgroin politics," these guys are doing "codpiece politics," named after the medieval fashion of fashioning dick holders into their garments to express their virility. Except that the men back then didn't put their dicks inside the codpiece, it was empty, often stuffed with fabric.
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