Platner

People will vote for him anyway. Spite voters are foxhole voters, who will stick with you as long as you are shooting outward, however bad you are.  People want to show how much they hate Trump by voting out Susan Collins, which is about as indirect as you can get. In the late 1800s many doubters did not consider it wise to go after Jesus, who retained popularity even among some nonbelievers, so they went after Paul, claiming that he took a gentle doctrine of Jesus and made it harsh. (I don't think Trump qualifies well as Jesus, but he is the hated president. Attacking Collins to get to him seems a proper analogy of inappropriate spite.) I have CS Lewis to thank for pointing out that the harshest words in the NT come from the lips of the Savior, while Paul talks more about Grace. 

With spite, facts don't matter. Platner is still a way of sticking it to The Man, even though he is The Man, a child of privilege who survives by crony capitalism. My own CS Lewis reference reminds me of the scene in "The Great Divorce" in which visitors to the edge of heaven do not think they have any intention of coming in.  The Lewis character remembers...

 The voyage seemed to them a small price to pay if once, only once, within sight of that eternal dawn, they could tell the prigs, the toffs, the sanctimonious humbugs, the snobs, the 'haves,' what they thought of them.

The George MacDonald character answers

"I have seen that kind converted," said he, "when those ye would think less deeply damned have gone back. Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already."