For better or worse, Donald Trump is perhaps the most influential figure in modern political history. Those who mourn this development should oppose not only Trump himself, whose career has only a few years left to run, but also anyone who operates according to the same shallow mode of politics. In the increasingly bizarre midterm election season, one of the most aggressive practitioners of Trumpian politics is Graham Platner, the likely Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Maine.

Even though Platner’s likely Republican opponent, Susan Collins, is far closer to Trump when it comes to policy, the ex-Marine demonstrates how MAGA’s disfigurement of American politics has a doppelganger on the progressive Left. Platner has weathered a long list of scandals. Most recently, voters learned that the former Marine and Bernie Sanders-endorsed “progressive” has an alleged history of abusive behaviour towards women. Ex-girlfriends have accused him of locking them in rooms, threatening them, and grabbing their wrists with enough force to leave bruises. They’ve also detailed a wide range of violent fantasies, including his repeated hope to “rape” a home invader, but “not in a gay way”, only to assert his dominance. Platner denies the allegations.

The problem is that he also has a Nazi tattoo. The ex-girlfriends also claim that, despite Platner’s insistence that he didn’t understand the significance of the symbol when he got the tattoo, he would often refer to it as “my Totenkopf”. Nothing if not consistent, Platner has also appeared on the podcast of a neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist, calling himself a “longtime fan”.

The rejection of character as irrelevant, the degrading readiness to excuse any offence against decency, extreme partisanship as justification for reckless behaviour, the mainstreaming of paranoia and hatred: it is all there with Platner. As the broader American culture has confused crudity and disrespect with “authenticity”, Trump has given enough of them what they want to win two out of three elections. Mainly, people like assholes. Their violations of normal standards of behaviour demonstrate their “realness”. Progressive Democrats have convinced themselves that they can win with the same formula, and Platner is the test case.

With every revelation, he has resorted to giving speeches in the style of a pro wrestler, scowling into the camera while shouting about the “Epstein Class”, the “political establishment”, and seemingly everyone in the world who is conspiring to sabotage his “revolutionary” candidacy. To deflect attention away from troubling accusations and repeated misdeeds with attacks on nebulous enemies is a move straight out of the Trump script.

As Platner’s scandals have deepened, his supporters have become more rabid. Progressive podcaster Jennifer Welch insisted that “I’ve had toxic boyfriends. That’s part of the human experience,” while attacking Collins as a “MAGA fascist to her core”. Left-wing officials, including likely presidential candidate Rep. Ro Khanna, have defended their newly anointed hero by denigrating his accusers or indulging in whataboutism about Collins’s politics.

While hardly a scintillating politician, Collins voted to convict Trump after his second impeachment, as well as voting to curb his powers to prolong the war with Iran. She is hardly a pro-MAGA militant. Should Platner lose, Democrats may come to regret throwing their support behind a candidate with a Nazi tattoo and a closet full of skeletons.