on Friday a series of Reddit posts made by Platner between 2013 and 2021 — and deleted before his campaign — in which he called himself a “communist,” referred to law enforcement officers as “bastards” and downplayed the severity sexual assault reports
One of those things is not like the others
Yeah. Bastards everywhere should feel insulted.
It amazes me how many people on this site are still going to bat for Platner after this has come out. I think this post does a good job of pointing out why the defense I keep seeing on here about him not knowing what it meant falls flat. Dude is a military history buff and someone doesn’t know what that incredibly famous image means? I don’t buy it for a second. Maybe twenty years ago when he got it, but zero chance that hasn’t been brought to his attention by now. Especially with the report that he used to go around and tell people that that’s exactly what it was.
I dunno man, Susan Collins or a secret Nazi. It’s a tough choice.
Edit: The sad thing is that I don’t even know if I’m being sarcastic…
You do realize the election is a year away and the primaries haven’t happened yet, right? It is in no way a binary choice between those two candidates.
I do realize that, yes. It was an attempt at levity, because holy shit, what a world we live in.
Haha, right on, almost put that if it was sarcasm then you totally got me on it. After being called a puritan for taking issue with him having a nazi tattoo, I can’t tell who is being serious or not on this anymore.
I think my favorite lighthearted response (from bluesky) was- Never trust a man with frosted tips. Seems like a pretty good code to live by.
Janet Mills is running as well, even though she’s about 127 yrs old, she would still be an improvement over Collins.
My dad got a Confederate flag tattoo under identical circumstances when he was in the military. Years later when he realized how dumb it was he got it covered up.
My brother, a union mechanic in a deeply rural area and served in the military, never identified as socialist or communist. And when he saw a coworker with a deaths head sticker on his hard had immediately knew what it was, and called me.
I’m sorry, this guy is either a deep operator or incredibly dumb. His leftism isn’t practical, its just ideas. If he’s just mistaken, that’s fair. Go out and get some actual experience. But he is disqualified to lead our movements, for a very long time.
When this big tough white middle aged oyster farmer gets arrested and tortured by Israeli military for trying to smuggle aid into Gaza, when he has successfully run local campaigns that have had a real lasting positive effect on the lives of our most vulnerable workers, then let’s have a frank conversation about his qualifications for office.
I actually know someone who was on the Gaza flotilla. This guy is a joke.
Well, someone should tell her that many truly are that “painfully stupid”.
You’re allowed to be stupid, but that disqualifies you from representing the left and leading our movements.
Also I think her point is that he isn’t stupid.
oh yes, we can.
Don’t post pictures of text
https://www.grahamforsenate.com/platform
- I don’t believe he’s a nazi. The reddit posts make me think he was never a far right guy. He was just a military guy trying to figure stuff out.
- If anyone in the election has like 90% of his platform, they can get my vote. Until I see momentum behind a candidate that supports universal healthcare, is against the genocide in Gaza, and the dozen other progressive issues, he’ll still get my support.
Getting someone that has the history and look of Platner to be fighting for progessive values is important. If we can get 20 somethings who would fall to right wing propaganda to pay attention to Platner and his growth story, we can build a better society for a lot of people.
Our senators have got skulls on them. Are… are we the baddies?
I’m willing to believe that maybe through some crazy chain of events you didn’t know when you got it. I’m maybe even willing to believe that through some crazy chain of events you didn’t learn about it for 18 years. What I am not willing to believe is that when he decided to run, nobody in his team told him. He should have gotten it covered or removed. They go through your life looking for anything bad because they know the opposition will. All this combined, there’s 0% chance he just learned now. For some reason they’re playing this weird game. The most generous interpretation I can come up with is that he feels attachment to it and doesn’t wanna get rid of it, but even that’s pretty fucked. You can’t keep your racist tattoo just because you’re nostalgic for it.
I mean, he absolutely can keep it just because he likes it, but that brings consequences
Oh, lol. Good point. The unstated clause being “and not be a racist.”
Something about a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Its more a wolf in wolf’s clothing saying he didn’t realize its wolf’s clothing
But this sheep is clothed in nazi-clothing
What about his reddit post history makes you think he’s a nazi?
Just a guess, and OP may correct me if I’m wrong, but it would probably be the nazi tattoo he has had on his chest for the past 20 years.
Oof
Ouch
The old comments were easily forgivable
A literal Nazi tattoo is something else :/
Military murderer does drunken Nazi culture things while being paid to spread capitalism with violence. Doesn’t apologize.
To be fair, I didn’t even know what a Totenkopf was before yesterday. Yes, I’m an American zoomer. This goes to show how shite our US history public education is.
And Platner said that he underwent multiple inspections by the military. Not one of those times did the military point out that his tattoo was a hate symbol. Should they have? Would they have? Clearly not.
Now that he knows the “truth”, whether you agree that this is his first time learning about the symbol or not, he needs to cover it up or have it removed. Post pictures on social media. Make it a big thing so the fascists and tankies don’t call you a communist and Nazi all at the same time.
If he doesn’t get it removed, well then I’m not sure if I want to back him.
He has to do more than get it removed.
Seems like it’s become in fashion to blame ignorance over your shitty beliefs, instead of owning own your choices like a responsible adult.
Always been, you think Nero owned up to what he did? Hypocrisy is the least important thing to people in a leader.
Something smells so bad, can it be his BullShit?!
Okay, so having learned that, the laser treatment to remove it is probably in his calendar already, right? And he’ll be able to show everyone that it’s removed quite soon?
Right?
edit Right.
Yes, he is getting it removed
Oh, it went better than expected. My happy mistake.
He’s said that he’s getting it removed.
Now we have to wait and see if he sticks to that.
He also apologized AFTER people finding out his comments. Just the pefrect hypocrite conciousless politician ready to tell dumbfucks whatever they want just for a position of power when his actual values are pride of war crimes, racism, sexism, and slaughtering brown people for 13 years.
This is like trusting a wolf in sheep clothing after his big-pointy ears came out, and then he was “Ssorry!! I tucked them back in… Baaa Baaa… Look… I’m back to being a sheep”
The fuck is wrong with you??
The guy with 5 separate compact tours who was deployed in the same cities and time of Blackwater documented war crimes of killings and rapings in Ramadi and Faillujah, and kept rejoinging the same ill-trained war-criminal military contrator for 13 years of US imperalism invovlment in third-world countries that left them in poverty and ruins ?? Wait, he also has histroy of sexual assault allegations, rape and racist comments, and a nazi tattoo??
Edit: it turned out he only joined blackwater after they were rebranded as Constellis due to their war crime convictions. he also apologized for his rape and racist comments after people found out about them. and about the tattoos he said it was from anime or whatever but it’s not nazi symbol. He is still proud of his 5 compact tours of shame US invasions over the period of 13 years though as if he can’t stop reminiscing about the memories of seeing brown people killed.
Imo, he is conciousless af, and ready to lie and adapt to tell you whatever you want to hear, and he’s so eager to be in position of power… So it all checks out; he is perfect for the job of a conciousless lip-service politician with values open for sale to the highest bidder.
some corrections
it was one tour with blackwater, after four tours with the military, and i don’t think there were sexual assault allegations against him (were there? he did post reddit comments blaming women in the military for their assaults…).
And yet he is still the least genocide supporting candidate in the primary.
The bar is so, so low.
Can people change, recognize their bad behavior in the past, and atoll for it now?
Really hard to tell with politicians, the whole game is to seem like a good person to as many voters as possible. You only find out once they don’t need voters anymore.
Ok, well I’ll take that over politicians now that don’t even bother to lie. Democrats nowadays don’t lie and cater to the Right.
At least Obama ran on a campaign of change while fucking us all in the ass. Politicians doing that though shift the Overton Window and change the permission structure for what you can and can’t say on a political campaign.
Graham Platner will do his job in pushing the envelope, and other progressives will follow suit.
Yes.
Are they entitled to support from progressives and endorsement of his political campaign from the left? No.
Maine is not a very left-leaning state, so I doubt any endorsement from online leftists really matters
Then neither does criticism.
Until I hear different from leftist organizers in Maine, imma just assume Platner is toast.
I’m not saying Vote Blue No Matter Who.
I am saying that Platner is taking it from both sides right now, when Leftists could show some support by trying to gather a unified front.
Platner isn’t perfect. He’s done a lot of bad shit. But him winning in Maine means other progressives that AREN’T him become more confident in running.
Let’s not forget the DNC’s role in this.
I’m not in Maine, so my vote doesn’t count. I’m allowed to criticize a political subject, principled criticism is one of the only ways to uncover truth.
Also there is a difference between a united front and a popular front. In a united front, left groups retain their ability to constructively criticize each other and maintain independence and democracy, while working practically to achieve ends that would be a clear improvement for working class conditions.
A popular front is when left groups dissolve themselves into a movement, which would be actually controlled by the most powerful group, in this case the DNC. I don’t trust the DNC, and they are extremely difficult to work with. Popular fronts are authoritarian and disastrous.
There is no indication that electing one possibly left wing senator would be a marked improvement, or that giving power to the DNC in this one race would improve conditions for the vast majority of people.
This thread makes me believe Heritage Foundation troll factories are now operating within Lemmy as well. Nobody can be this dense.
