Let’s be honest here. How many people would have recognized that image as a Nazi symbol before thos became news? I wouldn’t have, skull tatoos are common. News articles had to tell is it was and show pictures of and explain what it had been some 80 years ago. Maybe he knew it was a Nazi symbol, but I kinda doubt it given his political statements and the fact that any smart person running for office in Maine wouldn’t have got it removed long before.
Eh, having read some of the reddit posts from the old account etc, if I were in that area voting, I’d likely give him the benefit of the doubt. Especially compared to alternatives. There were quite a few posts that seemed like he genuinely thought the symbols extended beyond ‘just’ Nazism, often arguing in his posts that it was common to see that sort of imagery on ppl in the military.
This article is garbage.
His tattoo is not a resemblance to a nazi tattoo, it is a fucking nazi tattoo.
He knows it’s a fucking Totenkopf and it is the size of a grapefruit right over his heart.
No self-respecting tattoo artist would put a Totenkopf on a human being without being a nazi themselves.
He got the Totenkopf in Croatia; a country with strong far-right ties.
He worked for Blackwater killing brown people in the Middle East.
He is not what he seems.
Good luck people of Maine.
Let’s look at the relevant candidates for this Senate race:
It’s Graham Platner – a former marine who had a forgotten reddit account with years of pro-socialist posts; Janet Mills, a 77-year old dinosaur who will be anything but progressive; and sitting Republican Susan Collins.
People can change, and Platner has demonstrated that he did. Given his alternatives, is an old tattoo which he covered really any reason to not vote this guy??? It’s not Graham Platner versus a picture-perfect socialist who runs a commune that saves orphans and puppies. It’s Platner v. Susan Collins v. Janet Mills. Do not let the Mainstream Media make this a controversy.
Sorry, he’s a nazi who only removed his tattoo when it became known about, and lied that he didn’t know what it was. He’s running as a Dem just because that gives him better odds to win in Maine. (edit: And even if he didn’t have the tat his Blackwater history would disqualify him in my book.)
In this case I’d go for the ‘old dinosaur’ since
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she might die or have to leave early and then you could replace her in a special election
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She’s neither a repub nor a fucking nazi.
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Purity testing has been the biggest contributor to the downfall of democracy.
If we weren’t so ready to cut each other down trump wouldn’t have gotten the foothold he did.
Until the progressive culture in America gets off its high horse the corporate donors are going to just keep us infighting while they sweep away our rights.
We need to accept that nobody is perfect and to allow anyone who wants to pull away from trump/conservativism to do so.
All this “once a X always a X” rhetoric only reinforces X identity because it denies any possible alternative.
He only covered it up a few days ago, after the story broke. It would absolutely be different if he had old nazi tattoos that had been covered up a decade ago, even five years ago, but he waited until he got called out. His former political director said Platner knew what the tattoo was.
Plus it’s the subject of one of the most famous comedy sketches on the internet. The guy has been using reddit since 2009, there is no way he didn’t see the “are we the baddies” meme.
Even if we buy his story, it feels disqualifying for someone who wants to be in the senate to not recognize the second most common nazi symbol in the world.
Is this really the second most common? I would put the SS lightning bolts, imperial eagle, and iron cross above this. I didn’t recognize this as a nazi symbol when all this broke, and I have seen are we the baddies memes
Well, is he gonna do Nazi shit or not?
I think that’s a question we should be asking about any candidate, not just the ones with nazi tattoos. I also think it’s fair to say candidates with nazi tattoos probably have a higher preponderance of nazi beliefs. Unfortunately without being able to see the future we can’t know for sure how someone will act.
I love that skit, seen it so many times along with most of the wkuk stuff, the emblem wasn’t something I paid attention to. So I only found out about this emblem being a nazi thing when all this platner stuff broke. Not excusing him, just saying that it really isn’t unbelievable to have not seen that emblem before in the right context to know what it means.
Yes but you didn’t have it tattoo’d over your heart for 18 years… you tend to recognize things you’re familiar with.
But by all means, lets please have the first senator to call Gaza a genocide have a Nazi tattoo, that won’t cause any problems.
I’m not trying to say the other candidates are good, but we still have like 7 months to find someone who doesn’t have any recently covered nazi tattoos.
Let the downvotes flow I guess.
If someone better comes along I’d definitely be happy to see them. Would rather candidates not have concerning shit in their past like this.
This. He said the good thing… I don’t like the click bait.
Eh, not really. This is not an admission of support. Here’s why.
I’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when these creeps invade tolerant spaces. We’re talking clubs packed full of goths, punks, metal-heads, very gay people, and the occasional furry. First, it’s just one or two. Then their friends show up. You may not even realize it until it’s too late. And there they are, happily mixing it up with everyone else. Their bigotry is usually only evident when put to the test, and there aren’t a lot of situations where that’s called for. But provoke their sense of ‘correct’ social hierarchy and things get bad, fast. Then the bouncers get called in to handle the really stupid/violent ones.
And that’s where the problem lies with this statement. Nazis have zero issues standing side-by-side with the people they hate. Just as long as they know they can seize control or maintain the upper-hand whenever they want, is enough. In this situation, we have someone running for public office, versus someone who’s just a voter. They’d be holding all the power in this situation, and didn’t admit to lending that power to a trans person in any way; something that would divorce him from Nazis support. So, the assertion of “stand by your side” isn’t even worth the electricity it took to get it to our screens.
He answered it in a way that did not commit to “standing up for”
He said “yes” to a yes or no question, then expanded on the answer. Not sure why you’d think that.
They think that because people are still performatively, emotionally convinced that the guy is a nazi because their favorite reactive streamer said so, and will use any normal political situations or conversations as validation of this emotional defensiveness.
their favorite reactive streamer
Is there a specific one or do you just mean this generally?
No they rightfully see Nazi symbology and go “Nazi?”.
You’re the performative outrage section it seems.
The tattoo dates to roughly 2009, IIRC. The Daily Wire and a few other far-right shitrags have published hysterical pieces about him–via his Reddit account–talking about training the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Club in firearms use and safety in 2020. Or, as they said, “antifa”. And the SRA IS notably anti-fascist in their ideology (I’m sure that some percentage of them are tankies, but the org as a whole doesn’t seem to be authoritarian), and very pro-LGBTQ+. The turned up photos of one of the events that these publications are saying he’s in. (I can’t tell, TBH; the photos aren’t that good. He could be, but I can’t say for certain.)
So the problem you run headlong into here is, if he secretly has/had Nazi beliefs at one time, sufficient to get a tattoo signifying such, why would be be training SRA members?
In addition to that, everything he was posting on Reddit appears to say he’s not a Nazi. Some of the stuff is questionable (slurs, for instance, although those are probably still commonly used in the military), but most people that are fascists don’t hide that shit when they’re posting “anonymously”. And the account was deleted in 2021, four years before he declared for a Senate run. If he was planning a con, that’s a looooooooong time to be building an anti-fascist online persona before it gets any kind of payoff.
I don’t care when the tattoo is from, even he admits it’s Nazi symbology he just says he didn’t know it at the time. The rest of that is irrelevant to being suspicious of a dude with a Nazi tattoo in the same way I would be suspicious of a dude with a tattoo involving the numbers 14 and 88. Could it be innocent? Sure dude, is it “performative outrage” to question the dude because of it? Absolutely not, it would be fucking irresponsible not to.
People do contradictory shit all the time especially if it helps their end goal whatever that may be in the long run. I don’t really know one way or the other but I know I’d prefer a candidate with similar professed beliefs without a next tattoo.
What you feel to see here is that I didn’t say anything about his stances or beliefs. What you’re left with is it reasonable to be wary of dudes with Nazi tattoos? Id say yeah, and I’d question anyone that didn’t say the same.
You know that he covered up the tattoo within a day of revealing it, right? And that he was the one that revealed it first? The ‘scoop’ from large news outlets came after he spoke about it–and released videos and photos–on Pod Save America.
So he’s not a dude with a Nazi tattoo. He’s a dude that had a tattoo that he may or may not have known was a Nazi tattoo at some time in the past.
Sorry, I didn’t hear you over the sound of actual nazis wearing unambiguous symbology they’re proud of who are now running the country. Next time I will learn to be more performatively hateful to someone who is acknowledging and fixing problems and still working for a better outcome.
Because what really matters here is that we all preserve the purity club and never, ever practice what we preach by giving people empathy and good-faith.
Yeah because public Nazis exist certainly closeted Nazis don’t exist anymore, right? I said you’re being performative because questioning someone with a Nazi tattoo is definitely reasonable and logical. Their belief or disbelief of his story is their issue and wholely detached from the reasonably of questioning the tattoo in general.
You’ll notice I didn’t offer my actual opinion on him, you’re the one trying to purity test people based on a reasonable question of a public figure running for office.
You can’t argue with stupid.
It’s a fucking totenkopf the size of a grapefruit right over his heart.
He waited until the last minute to reveal it and cover it up.
He got the Totenkopf in Croatia; a known far right-wing supporting country.
He was a fucking Blackwater merc.
Stop electing people who serve billionaire masters.
Even if he is who he says he is, maybe he should sit this one out because his judgment is obviously not sound.
I’m all for him leading the way in the Civil War though.
Good luck, Maine.
Is he former Service? “Stand beside” means a lot more to him than to you.
He is former service. Can you expand on this? It seems relevant, particularly since the commenter who started this thread is very fixated on the specific words he used.
Lick the boot and elevate war criminal Nazis just because they say “I’m progressive now”
He still brags about how much he loved killing Iraqis, but Iraqis are not American so it’s perfectly okay, he got a Nazi skull tattoo to commemorate his good time killing brown people, but he’s saying all the right things at an event where he’s portraying a progressive, makes your knees weak.
Nazi war criminals being elevated by liberals is par for the course, unfortunately. He wants to have the most lethal military too, but he’s smart enough to not use those words, he just thinks we owe him a lifetime of gratitude (his words, on his website) for the war crimes he says he regrets being a part of, and he wants to fund the military and support veterans despite stating his disagreement with what the military is doing.
Can you expand on why you believe this?
“Yes, I will absolutely stand next to you, and if we ever have to go knock doors together, I’m happy to stand by your side,” he added.
When it comes to politics, if they do not say exactly the words, they mean something entirely different.
What he actually said:
Yes, I will stand next to you physically if we go knock on doors together. I would be happy to be physically next to you while knocking on doors.
Why are we knocking on doors? That is never specified. For animal rights? Has he ever knocked on a door in favor of trans rights? Does his (elected) job include knocking on doors for trans rights?
He did not say, “I will stand up for,” or “I would vote in favor of,” Trans rights.
I know this guy is campaigning that he’s not a politician… Just a regular guy… But every regular guy who has ever gone into politics does the same stuff.
Also, he has a Nazi tattoo on his chest… And sure let’s give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know it was a Nazi tattoo when he got it, but that raises some flags as to his commitment to trans rights when he gives an answer that is dancing around.
A two day old account with 50+ comments doing nothing but stirring up shit about how no one meets your purity test and accusing everyone in this thread of being from ML for not thinking “yes, I will stand with you” (coming from a marine) is an inadequate answer to the question “will you stand with me?”.
Maybe you are here in good faith, but it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it.
Do better.
Ahh read between lines and assume what they mean to confirm the negative view you already have. Very healthy and not the standard MO of conspiracy theorists.
It’s fine for you to be concerned that it means what you say, but you are emphatically stating that your assumption is the truth. Even if you’re right, your methodology is flawed.
You sound like a republican or, like a person who wants right wing people to gain power within the United States. Perhaps that has to do with the fact that you are an ML, and your only desire is to see the United States crushed. Maybe that’s why you’re trying to push the idea that recognizing hypocrisy in government officials is “crazy”
Haha, not at all. You can review my comments if you want. I’m a person who is interested in having proof and facts instead of assumptions. I am of course worried about fake progressives and people like Fetterman, but deciding the conclusion and molding to facts to match it is exactly how we get people believing in nonsense.
I listen fairly often to a debunk/analyzing show of Alex Jones called Knowledge Fight. They also sometimes review others. I also listen to Know Rogan, which is a similar show critically analyzing Joe Rogan, as well as several other skeptical podcasts etc. Something they all and I as well agree on is we shouldn’t work off of preconceived notions like the subjects of their shows do, but instead make sure our assertions are backed up with evidence and truth. As I said, you have every right to be worried; that isn’t my criticism.
However, if you just do the same thing the worst right wing influencers do by making a decision and then making any minor difference to how you assume they should respond mean your preconceived notion is correct, how do you convince people that when the ring wing does it, it’s wrong, but when you do it, it’s right?
You sound exactly like an ML trying to crush the United States by dismissing anyone who questions the intention of the politicians that you want elected.
If you actually were worried about fake politicians like Fetterman, you would be taking this guy a little bit more seriously. There are a lot of red flags around him – and while I’m not saying we should write him off entirely… I’m saying his words matter and you are saying his words do not.
You’re also quickly accusing me of conspiracy theory which is a telltale sign of your actual intentions. What a joke.
I think you watch too many youtube streamers.
I can safely say I have not watched a YouTube streamer in my life.
Then switch to decaf and talk to some people who are in the service or have served and prepare to get laughed at for suggesting it.
This is a “hasan’s dog” thing all over again, it’s overblown bullshit meant to distract you from actual nazis running for office or in office now, people who aren’t even subtle or ashamed. We’re not in some cloak and dagger thing where they’re sneaking in by pretending to be progressives, it’s media-fueled hysteria.
I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with all of this, but I’m just commenting on his quote and how he did not Answer the question. The fact that you’re getting angry about this curious.
If you take part of the guys statement and ignore the rest of it, and fixate on him not using the precise words “stand up”, I guess I can understand what you are getting at. But in context, he seems to be expressing the exact opposite of what you are claiming.
If I focus on what he actually said, and not what you want me to think he means… l o l
What he actually said:
Yes, I will stand next to you physically if we go knock on doors together. I would be happy to be physically next to you while knocking on doors.*
LOL. You can’t claim to focus on what he actually said when you’re responding to an edited version of his answer designed to confirm your preconceived notions.
You’re grasping at straws now.
deleted by creator
I disagree with you but you have beautiful fingers and are under no obligation to doxx yourself for anyone, ever.
It’s amazing how when you come back online I get messages from several different users within a few minutes but then nothing in between
Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer who launched his Democratic primary campaign in August in hopes of ultimately challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her seat in 2026, answered that he firmly believes “that every single American has the right to live the life they want to live in their own body as they see fit,” and emphasized what he views as his “responsibility” as a straight, white, cisgender male, to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
“I get to put myself out there in ways that other people don’t,” said Platner. “I’m doing this because I know that I can say things, I know that I can have conversations, I know that I can knock on doors in places that a lot of other people can’t have access to, that a lot of other people won’t feel safe in.”
“Yes, I will absolutely stand next to you, and if we ever have to go knock doors together, I’m happy to stand by your side,” he added.
Wow, people are really pulling the last bit out of context and assuming the worst implications. His “stand by you” and “knocking on doors” thing is him acknowledging his white male privilege to feel safe doing things like going door to door in most neighborhoods, and being happy to extend that safety to others by standing beside them while they do it.
I get the concern about having a Nazi tattoo for over a decade, and concern that everything he is doing is performative based on his past. But what he said was pretty unequivically that he will support LGBTQ+ people, including in action. Whether anyone believes him or not is up to them. But what he said was not mealy-mouthed, it was direct.
Seems he is going fairly hard in the mortally correct direction, there.
He keeps saying all the right things.
Hopefully he isn’t a lying Nazi
People change.
2016 me would have you think that 2025 me would be the goose stepping leader of the Trump fan club but instead I moved to a liberal city, came out of the closet and have been living a genuine and happy life.
I now despise trump and have come to embrace democratic socialism.
That radical change was directly related to my liberal friends being willing to talk with me and welcome me into their spaces despite our differences.
If we can’t accept that people are capable of change then we’re defaulted into a perpetual conflict where physical violence becomes inevitable.
If things can’t be worked out with words people will result to hands. Those are ultimately the only two tools people have to deal with each other.
Accepting that people can change allows people feel like they have a space to change to. If I didn’t have my friends to welcome me into their liberal space I never would have changed because the social pressure to stay conservative and for fear of being alone.
I agree, I used to be a shitty little incel boy, and now I’m a married woman working to try to help people.
People can change, I hope the Nazi tattoo was just a mistake like the ones I made in my past.
Yeah, hopefully.
There’s a really strong argument to be made that regardless of personal beliefs, seeking that kind of power is inherently untrustworthy. But until we have a national legislature draft we have to rely on the evidence we have that people are going to do good things in office.
Shit, that’s a breath of fresh air!
and a skull tattoo he got while in the Marines that some said resembled a Nazi symbol
🙄
it was one though, hard to say that someone has grown if they’re feigning ignorance about the entire thing.
He has already addressed this and got the tattoo covered up. Case closed.
his explanation left a lot to be desired, though it’s not surprising that Nazi tattoos fly under the radar as a state department mercenary.
If you’re posturing like a politically-aware leftist or calling yourself a communist, to claim ignorance of something like that just makes it sound like you’re lying because you got caught.
His explanation that he was drunk with buddies on deployment in Croatia is perhaps the most believable circumstance in which someone would make that mistake. Yes, he had the tattoo for several years. I don’t recall how long he said he was aware of it being the Nazi symbol, but yes, in my opinion he should have gotten it removed or covered sooner once he did know. I certainly never would have known that the skull was a Nazi symbol without being explicitly told.
That said, no, I don’t think it sounds like he’s lying. He isn’t posturing either, and there’s plenty of evidence to back that up.
If you’re not capable of accepting that he made a mistake and addressed it appropriately, then I don’t see how you could ever be satisfied. If we want real people to run for office and not just establishment approved candidates, you need to open to the idea that people make mistakes, they change, and they may not have the squeaky-clean past you idealize.
I think you have unrealistic expectations, not just of people running for office, but for people in general. Your purity test is not only foolish, but will cause you to be deeply unsatisfied and let down by so much in the world.
I can accept that for a lot of democrats this is something they’re entirely willing to overlook. It’s not a surprise because they have already been fine operating as co-conspirators in decades of US warmongering.
Your purity test is not only foolish, but will cause you to be deeply unsatisfied and let down by so much in the world.
I agree, I might be less let down by the world if I was more comfortable around people with nazi tattoos. I think I will continue to be disappointed though.
All this “once an X always an X” rhetoric does is prevent anyone who wants to pull away from trump from doing so.
It’s already difficult enough for people to change, basically telling anyone who wants to change “yeah you can alienate yourself from my enemies but you’ll always be on my shit list” is absolutely not going to win them over and just reinforces that X identity is all they have.
Unless you like losing elections you really need to consider how winning people over is crucially important to any movement.
I’m fine with people changing and learning from their past behavior. If he was just another person on the street I wouldn’t have any issue.
However I’m troubled by having someone who’s already demonstrated that lack of judgement and awareness pursuing a leadership position. I just can’t trust the guy on his words alone at this point. It’s a year out from the election, surely there’s other people who can run.
“I’m troubled by having someone who’s already demonstrated that lack of judgement and awareness”
It would be one thing if he did something criminal or malicious but having had shitty beliefs and then changing them just shows growth.
Judging someone who’s an ostensible ally and who is exactly the kind of change we want to see for having needed the change in the first place is circular logic and ultimately self-alienating.
You say you’re fine with people changing but your logic doesn’t allow for anyone who’s changed their views to be a representative.
At this point it’s not even about ideology anymore but just straight up identity politics.
You’re basically treating him like he’s an ideological felon where he’s allowed to continue existing but can’t participate in politics.
Sorry but I severely don’t buy this original sin level of being forever unworthy just for having had different political beliefs in the past.
We need to normalize growing up instead of relentlessly punishing people for having been misled naive at some point in their life.
You say there’s better people to run but I’d argue that a convert is absolutely the best person to run because it opens the door for more converts.
It would be one thing if he did something criminal or malicious
He was a part of the US war machine for decades, you understand how that’s doing harm to people in a concrete sense? I get that he finally quit, but I consider that history worse than being a criminal, especially under our current judicial system.
They can be reformed, but I’d rather not have them in a leadership position.
Many people enter the military because of poor economic prospects, being crushed by capitalism is literally their best recruiting tool.
Without knowing why he joined, holding his service history against him is effectively victim blaming.
Not to mention that even if he was ideologically motivated he’s now turned against something he literally fought for, showing massive positive growth.
So either way his service history isn’t a valid refute for the points I’ve previously brought up about change/growth.
Sorry but this all seems like justification for indulging in identity politics.
If you’ve ever been in or known anyone in the service, you would know that it’s massively overblown and doesn’t “mean” anything. There are thousands of different varieties of skull and crossbone out there, you would have to be really deep in the nazi sauce to use that particular design as a signal.
This is pretty much a “hasan’s dog” thing, it’s being overblown because of the desperate need by media personalities, including youtube streamers, to harvest money from reaction content, driving up everyone’s black-and-white thinking.
We have actual nazis in office and running for office, people who don’t even hide it. We have to stay focused on what the actual dangers are.
Honestly his military service is even more disqualifying as far as I’m concerned, but I guess spending years gunning down brown foreigners appeals to the median democrat.
We have actual nazis in office and running for office, people who don’t even hide it. We have to stay focused on what the actual dangers are.
It’s a year out, if it’s that serious surely someone without all this baggage could run for office.
Being against military service is a far more honest criticism, but also utterly unrealistic. We just don’t live in that world.
Except he didn’t just do military service, he also worked for Blackwater.
From his Wikipedia page:
In 2018, Platner returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, for about six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis, the private military company formerly known as Blackwater, where he provided diplomatic security to the US ambassador to Afghanistan.
He worked as security to the US ambassador for 6 months. And quit because he disliked the military industrial complex that he was witnessing from the inside.
As a former military person he could have lived the good life cashing giant checks from Blackwater until he reached retirement. Instead he quit to take on the not so cushy life of being an oyster farmer. And now he is diving head first into the wood chipper that is a political campaign in the United States against a well established GOP incumbent.
To be dismissive of such a person is reductive and unnecessarily demeaning. And leads me to wonder if you are being disingenuous in hopes of helping one of the, quite frankly utterly despicable, other candidates.
sadly we’re in the world where the bipartisan consensus is for endless warmongering and turning a blind eye to nazis
You have an incredibly childish view of the world.
That’s a pretty 1-dimensional perspective. If you understand both the shitty reality we live in AND that nothing is black-and-white, you will be a lot more effective at actually pushing the needle towards progress, like so many actual great activists have done which has gotten us to a world where your chances of being murdered and raped and eaten by bandits has fallen dramatically low.
if it means supporting someone like this guy I’d rather be rotating on a spit tyvm
if it means supporting someone like this guy I’d rather be rotating on a spit tyvm
That’s just utterly insane hyperbole that most likely has the opposite effect as you might think. I hope you grow more.
I understand that 100. People kept quiet about Fetterman and his worrying behavior before he was elected, then after his stroke when it was brought up repeatedly, people kept blaming the stroke.
Yes, people change and maybe Fetterman did and the stroke caused regression; and maybe he didn’t and it didn’t.
Eh, there definitely is a resemblance but the details aren’t quite the same: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:cexoqsdnukfflq6jhculm23i/bafkreiamqpmivablffphia4osiivjsds6xoscqi4adfdgopyh4dbwm3o5u@jpeg
Details? You’re looking at a different picture than I am.
I just see a black blob.
Also, thanks for posting that. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen a picture of the tattoo and as someone who hasn’t engrossed themselves in white supremacist culture, wouldn’t immediately place that as being a Nazi symbol.
looks the same to me
