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What Graham Platner Said When a Trans Mainer Asked: 'Will You Stand Up for Me?'
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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politics
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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.
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.
The guy is a murderous Nazi. There is no evidence he is reformed other than supposed Reddit posts. I am sorry, but this is definitely not an example of a purity test. This is a simple test of logic and you failed.
*years of supposed Reddit posts showing a clear new ideology, which Graham didn't even want shown. These were dug up by opposition. That just makes those posts feel more genuine in my mind. Maybe he broke free of the Military's cult ideology and now this is him making amends. Can we accept an apology from a person is trying to save us?
No, I cannot accept someone who is/was a Nazi who killed people that is being used to create a populist sentiment and to continue this appeal to Patriarchy.
I have watched him in interviews, he is weasely and is constantly fed information by political operatives. He is contrived by the powers at be to create some unholy union of voters.
Another populist asshole to suck up to the Patriarchy thus reinforcing everything that is wrong in US politics. If we have to nazify the Democratic Party and push murderers like this to win, then I am not sure if it is worth winning.
"I don't want the maybe-nazi, so let's capitulate to the definitely-nazis."
Thanks, that is the choice here. I don't want Nazi period. Is that hard to understand?
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
she might die or have to leave early and then you could replace her in a special election
She's neither a repub nor a fucking nazi.
I can't say definitively that he's a Nazi, but I have to agree that at the very least he obviously makes very poorly informed decisions - that alone makes him a bad choice for a leader in my book.
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
The Totenkopf is very fucking common, it was the symbol of the SS.
We know the SS had a skull symbol, but not everybody would be able to recognize it out of context or pick it out of a line up with other skulls.
You must not have actually looked at a Totenkopf. They are very specific.
You are correct that not everyone would recognize it.
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.
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.