You know who fucking loves it when the left refuses to accept someone over past mistakes? The right fucking loves it. Bring evidence that he’s lying about not knowing it was a Nazi symbol, or that he’s lying about his current positions, or fuck off.
This guy is like peak imperialist. Stupid tattoo aside, I don’t think numerous voluntary combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and working for Blackwater are “mistakes”.
Of the people in my life, some of the ones who have served in the military are the most disillusioned with the establishment. Listening to him, he sounds burnt out with American Imperialism. I was watching his town hall last night, it’s worth hearing him talk about it.
Yeah, to me it appears unlikely that the guy would be working in blackwater and NOT know what Nazi symbology is. All his friends probably had it too.
I would love to hear his explanations and justifications for his past actions. If he is truly remorseful, then that’s one thing, but so far I have only really seen “I’m an innocent boy and didn’t know nuffin.”
His website has some good policy positions.
He wants election finance reform, believes in environmental protections, medicare for all, protecting small businesses and is anti-billionaire. Seems like the right kind of anti-establishment populist and it’s refreshing to see someone so unapologetically progressive.
Dude helped do war crimes in Iraq and has a fucking nazi symbol on his chest
He said it was gotten in 2007 and has since gotten it covered up. Until I see evidence of him saying actual Nazi things like advocating for violence, holocaust denialism, admiration of authoritarianism/dictators, persecution of minorities or ethnicities, and other supremacist nationalist rhetoric I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Talk is cheap. See what happened with Fetterman? This guy is already showing who he is. He shot civilians in Fallujah. This dude should be in The Hague, I ain’t gonna trust anyone who got a fucking Nazi symbol engraved in them, they belong in the dustbin of history. The dude got the tattoo covered this week, because of the negative press about it. He was happy to keep that nazi symbol on his chest for nearly two decades and only got it removed because it got him flak.
Still waiting on the evidence of white nationalism and violent rhetoric in his platform. It’s clear the establishment is scared of him and is trying to use the common concerns of leftists to attack him, but it’s just kind of silly to call him a secret cryptofascist white supremacist when there are openly unapologetic ones already in government.
Yah I forgot politicians are always honest about their intents and goals on their platform websites, my bad.
I think committing war crimes and tattooing fascist symbols on your body is a pretty good indicator of the quality of a person.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/10/23/yjss-o23.html
Good luck
Interesting that the website you linked uses heavily biased language, cites a source that’s literally a guy who knew a guy who knew Platner, and consistently attacks the most prominent left-ish figures in American politics like Mamdani, Sanders and Cortes. Looks to me like a phony left website set up to trap leftists into thinking it’s on their side. Hmmm what does Common Dreams have to say?
https://www.commondreams.org/tag/graham-platner
Interesting.
Yeah, the language of the site is charged and I don’t agree with all of it, but it really doesn’t set off any alarm bells for you that this guy served at Abu Ghraib and later became a mercenary for Blackwater as recently as 2018? Like the dude with the Nazi tattoo who signed up to kill more people for US interests during the first Trump admin doesn’t seem like a red flag?
It doesn’t strike you as strange that this dude had a Nazi symbol tattooed on him for nearly two decades and only got it covered up recently when there was bad press about it?
I forgot politicians are always honest about their intents and goals on their platform websites, my bad.
Sometimes they are.
Liberals will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo machine running.
Are you saying this guy is status quo? I don’t know anything about him. Just know he’s going against a republican that’s been in office forever.
The DNC is backing the woman and trying to smear this guy
Oh, I wasn’t aware. They are supporting Susan Collins basically
If Mills get the nomination, then Collin wins by +15
The nazi tattoo guy who worked at Abu Ghraib?
That person didn’t ask how he was polling.
He’s talking about the 2 literal Nazi tattoos that he has had on his body for almost 20 years now. Which is a very legitimate concern.
I feel stupid for having to explain this to you people, but only Nazis who are really into the ideology permanently ink refrences to it on their fucking bodies.
He’s gonna win, so let’s hope the Nazi is progressive and kot lying to gain power like Nazis often do.
At this point we only have to hope he either was a dumb, clueless teenager in the military or hope he is a reformed nazi? Id love to believe he was just a teenager, I wouldnt recognize that symbol put up somewhere on the wall of a tattoo parlor, this is the first Im ever seeing that imagery.
He also got a tattoo of 1919, which is the 19th letter of the alphabet twice: SS
A college kid does not tattoo a random looking date on them without knowing what it’s supposed to mean…
Here’s the other tattoo. Big fat nothing burger.
Pro Trail Crew: Maintaining & Sustaining AMC White Mountain Trails since 1919
Oh hell yeah he only had 1 Nazi tattoo
Everyone gets 1 free permanent white supremacist art on their person before you start getting judged for them.
I wouldn’t have known that that rendition of skull and crossbones was Nazi symbology and just learned that today. He has a plausible story for how he got it, but you’re presenting this 1919 thing as a pattern to discredit that story.
If the 1919 tattoo is unrelated (and it sure seems to be), then your pattern of multiple Nazi tattoos falls apart and his story isn’t discredited by it.
2? What’s the other one?
The Totenkopf isn’t exactly a widely know Nazi symbol by laypeople, and he’s since had it covered up. If he’s saying he didn’t know, it’s probably the truth. The only universally recognized Nazi symbol is the swastika, and maybe half of people know the SS bolts.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/senate-hopeful-forced-explain-second-005831389.html
He also had a 1919 tattoo which is a dogwhistle for SS
You mean the 1919 tattoo that is part of the trail group tattoo and references the established date of the group that he is a member of? That tattoo? I swear to G-d, everybody is ready to label this guy as a nazi and leave it there and have no nuance, or decency. Where’s the compassion? Where’s the critical thinking? Do we not think it’s strange his campaign manager, who worked for the state with Mills, suddenly dipped the fuck out as soon as the reddit posts hit, right after Mills announced her run? The man got the damn tattoo covered already. I don’t see Pete Hegseth, actual nazi, getting his iron cross covered up anytime soon. Why can’t y’all see this is the establishment attacking this man, who has a problematic past, who has worked hard to change. But yeah, let’s let Mills get in there and continue the same bullshit we’ve dealt with for the past forty years.
Don’t get me wrong, I want progressive canidates.
It’s so fucking difficult to beleive a white man gets a white supremacist tattoo while in the white supremacist armed forces, then enters the most famously evil mercenary org on the planet, somehow does not hold Nazi beleifs.
I’m not capable of that much suspension of disbelief. It’s cartoonishly incriminating
Doesn’t matter tho cuz I can’t vote on that race.
Hopefully he isn’t a Nazi
I am a white man and I used to have very different views than I have today. Should I even bother?
I thought the tattoo thing was overblown, but it’s LITERALLY a Nazi tattoo.
Totenkopf:
Platner:
His excuse was he just picked it off the wall at a tattoo parlor, which raises the question of “What kind of tattoo parlor?”
I could understand a drunk military guy not getting the reference, but if that place had other Nazi stuff on the wall, maybe time to re-consider your choices?
He got it in Croatia btw. To me, it’s plausible he didn’t know. He seems to have gotten progressively more disillusioned by his time in the military. Comments from 2018 like
If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote in one since-deleted post. In another, he said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
don’t scream secret nazi to me. People comparing him to Fetterman is kinda silly to me considering Platner has called what’s going on in Gaza a genocide while Fetterman is a still supporter of Israel.
There’s a source out there, I guess, that claims they talked to Platner and he explicitly referred to his tattoo as “my totenkopf” but its an anonymous source who spoke to zionist publication Jewish Insider, so idk. Seems hit job-y to me.
Then again what the fuck do I know. The water is pretty muddy and its a terrible look regardless.
If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle
This gets said on lemmy 2-3 times a day and without any major disagreement.
Yeah that’s why I’m skeptical of this guy actually being a Nazi lol
But then again the dude literally had a Nazi tattoo so that’s why this whole situation is so weird.
I guess I can personally see it being ignorance because I didn’t learn about 88 until the last couple years.
Yeah that’s why I’m skeptical of this guy actually being a Nazi lol
I think there is a tendency to look for a form of ideological coherence in others that we our selves don’t necessarily have. And that being said, there is about a 0% chance I personally would have known that the “tottenkopf” skull and crossbones wasn’t just a different artistic version of a generic skull and cross bones in 2007, because outside of American History X, I just didn’t spend time researching or even acknowledging white nationalists. They’re abhorrent. Why would I have spent my time doing that? So yeah. Like big ol swastika, I would recognize that. But more subtle symbolism? Idk, I’m not a nazi I don’t spend time knowing those things.
That being said, in 2016-20 I did get involved with groups trying to confront white nationalism, especially in the veterans community. And in that time, I did learn more about different symbolism (although, frankly, I still don’t think I would have noticed this one; we were much more concerned with boogaloo boys, proud boys, 3%'rs, Patriot Prayer, Patriot Front).
I think its an issue, and its clearly divided the left substantially. And I think, with Fetterman as example, for good reason. But there is a literal biophysical explanation for Fetterman. Personality shifts post stroke are well documented.
I think its up to Graham, but there are also people doing some real diservice in the comment sections. You probably are not going to do better than Graham (assuming he’s genuine) in Maine. If you run the “safe Democrat” you are going to lose the seat. And frankly, Graham seems genuine, at least in what I’ve seen. He didn’t run, he didn’t deny. He apologized and explained.
