I can’t believe a former US marine who joined specifically for Iraq would be violent towards women.
Love how we still got people defending the Nazi Mercenary part of this Nazi Mercenary Rapist.
The people are so desperate for progressive candidates they have backed this guy. That tells you how far gone the sysstem has gone.
At this point, I don’t know, I can’t change anything about it anyway, and so I’m just at peace with it for now. I’m not in a position to vote for the guy, I can’t change the mind of anyone who is, and I have no idea if he is a leftist with a colored past or a fascist playing pretend with his politics. If he doesn’t get elected, he’ll probably get forgotten within a year. If he does get elected, he’ll be voting on and proposing laws and we will see what his true policy positions are. I’m just waiting at this point.
Graham Platner fought in the military, yes, but he has since gained consciousness of the Military Industrial Context and wants to limit its influence across the world. Veterans deserve a chance to develop dissent and grief for their active duty. Many that join the military at a young age fall hook, line, and sinker for propaganda.
Graham Platner had a totenkopf tattoo, yes, but he has since covered it up. Also, that tattoo was exposed for everyone to see at his sister’s wedding where the fiancé’s family was largely Jewish. I’d wager to say that most Americans don’t know about a totenkopf as much as the Nazi symbol or iron cross as the skull might be mistaken with a pirate flag.
All of the above points to a story of a broken person lied to by the American government to use their body as a meat shield for endless worldwide conquer, and their rehabilitation and reeducation to attone for their actions and do better in the world.
But that rehabilitation story falls apart with these rape allegations. Platner doubling down and denying his involvement, when Racicot had receipts with her friends and therapist before he even started his political campaign, nullifying any political motivations unlike with Fifield, alludes to a masked narcissism that risks his character. Why go to therapy to work on everything about yourself except this one aspect of your life? It’s inconsistent and introduces risks to how Platner might perform as a senator in the future.
Also, as a senator, Platner would have probably needed to undergo hearings about his past relationships to air out all of his dirty laundry in front of the entire nation if he gets elected. Other things may be dug up that Platner didn’t want people to know.
While Platner’s socialist policies are good, we can have better candidates with less baggage, like Troy Jackson.
If your instinct is to think the guy with the Nazi tattoo openly talked about how he enjoys war and killing people, bombed a city center, without being ordered, was a guard at one of the most infamous torture centers we know of, and joined fucking Blackwater isn’t an opportunist psycho taking advantage of you, you’ve crossed the line from sympathetic to gullible.
Show me where he said he enjoyed killing people.
All I’ve seen since the late 2010s is Platner denouncing his involvement with the MIC, and MIC as a whole.
Otherwise, you sound like another ML ultra that sees veterans as a monolith and has no room in the revolution for vets that have come around to leftist ideas.
Reddit thread “Why did you enlist in the Marine Corps”. Now deleted comment from 01/02/2020
“Wanted to have an adventure and kill some people. Joined up in ‘04, did Fallujah and Ramadi, and managed both. Hell of an excellent experience.”
deleted by creator
I got absolutely shit on for saying that I didn’t support him due to my long standing policy of not supporting people who get Nazi tattoos. People falling over themselves to say he had grown a lot since getting it, or that he didn’t know what it meant when he got it (bullshit). People saying I was some Collins loving conservative just because I refused to support a man who got a Nazi tattoo on his chest.
I hope this is a lesson to the idiots who thought I was being unreasonable and unforgiving. It takes a special kind of asshole to knowingly get a Nazi tattoo. Those kinds of people don’t grow out of it. They don’t change. They might get shamed enough to cover it up, but they will remain an asshole. The only good that someone with a Nazi tattoo can do is to throw themselves in a wood chipper and become fertilizer.
Platner aside, are you saying if someone had a controversial tattoo at any point in their life, then you would never vote for them?
A Nazi tattoo? Yes. I am saying that.
If someone had a Nazi tattoo at any point in their life, I would never vote for them. To me, they will forever be a piece of shit. I don’t see how this is a difficult concept to grasp.
He was a history buff who said he didn’t know what his tattoos meant.
Anyone that supported Platner is just another blind zealot voting because of the letter (D). Same shit we accuse Republicans of doing. We’re supposed to be better than them.
6 months from now, we’ll have all always been against this.
The standard is perfection. You establish that any and all leftists must attain this standard, or they are not true leftists. This works because perfect is an unattainable standard for every single leftist (and in fact every human, everywhere), so all are guaranteed to fall short of it. It’s such an easy, effective means of suppressing actual leftist movements. Remember, liberals are not new to this. They’ve been doing this for the better part of a century now, and they’ve gotten quite good at it.
Don’t be a Nazi rapist. -impossible standards of the puritanical left.
The other side of that coin is that we have structured a lot of our society to foster certain viewpoints.
It works real good to control people. It kinda makes sense that it works. It’s sort of what we’re all talking about.
It doesn’t seem like he can win, or should run so that’s sort of that. If someone’s going the same way as you are, you can walk together for a bit without moving in. Who knows we might hear from him again sometime.
I liked a lot of what he was saying, but I don’t live in Maine so I haven’t really looked into this person like someone on a ballot. So I may be out of line in this case.
Even if he was completely free of controversy, you’d find something to disqualify him. Maybe even just the fact that he’s white and/or a man. Men are inherently sexist and white people are inherently racist, so either of those characteristics alone would be enough.
But I will concede that there could potentially be a candidate who could be deemed acceptable, but such a candidate would necessarily hold limited appeal to the working class broadly, and especially the white working class, specifically, thus making them not a threat to capital. So, yes, liberals might allow a candidate who fails to meet their unattainable standard, but only if that candidate poses no threat of actually organizing the working class.
Maybe even just the fact that he’s white and/or a man. Men are inherently sexist and white people are inherently racist, so either of those characteristics alone would be enough.
We’re just gonna completely ignore that the most prominent figure on the American left is Bernie Sanders, then? Someone who somehow, incredibly, didn’t need to rape anyone to appeal to the working class?
It’s more than a little disingenuous to pretend that Bernie Sanders hasn’t received significant criticism from the left, especially on matters related to race and gender.
You really Britta’ed this meme…
It was a skull and crossbones and he got it converted into a celtic knot with dogs on it, very quickly. Then eight billion bots tried to tell me he was a homophobe because he said “All officers are gay, and not in the fun dick-sucking way” on Reddit in like 2012. I really didn’t buy that, and it primed me to get pretty dismissive of the noise pretty quickly.
And that’s the other thing, dude has been being AGGRESSIVELY smeared since he announced his run. And it’s very obviously because he’s one of the only candidates in the US that are espousing actual leftist talking points. It’s also why I was immediately skeptical when I heard this.
Yeah, republicans and centrist dems alike are terrified of this guy, and yet tankies are still going “nah, he’s a fascist!”
And then they’ll complain that america never elects leftists and the overton window keeps ratcheting to the right. Like gee, I wonder why…
Are the tankies that are anti platner in the room with us now?
Yes, actually. Yes they are.
Yes, actually. Yes they are.
We all need to start expecting oppo drops against progressive candidates with centrist primary runners-up the week or so before ballots finalize.
If they have progressive runners-up, expect the oppo drop in October the week before early voting opens.
Yeah well of course. But the thing is, we can expect it all we want but we will see if it works. Because if it does then I don’t know what progressives in north america do to actually combat that within the realm of voting and democracy within the system we are in.
I expect an october surprise against Talarico. And it’s not gonna come from republicans.
If democrats can’t find any dirt on Talarico, they’ll fuck with his campaign funding instead.
The circumventing of democracy through all this dirty bullshit is maddening. Theres no way through the system. If you go outside the system you’re branded as a violent terrorist of some kind. Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Without a mass movement with a large (majority?) support base from the population, which I dont think will happen in north america in my lifetime, we are just fucked.
Too bad half the working class became right-wing populists instead of left-wing populists because 90% of their interactions with leftists were just them being blamed for all the world’s woes on account of their whiteness.
Like maybe if you told them “we’re all working class, and those billionaires and corporations are the problem,” then maybe you’d get results.
But no, and whenever one of them complains about global financial elites, people accuse them of anti-semitism. Like, what the fuck? What’s actually anti-semitic is assuming “global financial elites” refers specifically to jewish people, yet here we are…
Its not leftists that did that. Its liberals and online psy ops.
Dude was defending people getting the SS doppelrune tattoo’d as “military tradition” or whatever on reddit. He had the tattoo for 18 years, there is nothing “quick” about it.
The only part I believe about this is that it’s tradition in the US Military to get matching Nazi tattoos.
Source?
see also https://themainemonitor.org/platner-reddit-comments/ and just search for “bolts”.
You don’t have the original post, image or link, that discussion was placed under do you? Srsly, I can’t form an informed opinion with only selected facts.
here is one such comment chain: https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/gysbbx/comment/ftdomxz/
you can also use pullpush to resurrect his comments:
sorry but you’re gonna have to do the rest of the work yourself.
German here. Is there any real image of the tattoo anywhere? I could only find some images with a big black blob.
Also it’s not like he denied having it, he for sure had a Totenkopf-tattoo that he put a “celtic knot” over.
https://jewishinsider.com/2025/10/graham-platner-ss-tattoo-maine-senate/
The issue with this kind of stuff is history. As a 40 you’re old American, whose grandfather served in World War II, I had no idea what that tattoo meant before this whole scandal.
The only symbolism we ever went over in school was the flag and swastika. I believe they thought dumb kids would mimic the iconography to look edgy.
Yeah, I keep saying this but idiots keep telling me I must have been a dumbass not to recognize it. I told them to show me a single screenshot of this symbol appearing in any media that depicts nazis or WWII and they couldn’t provide one, they just kept deflecting and calling me a dumbass.
It’s prolific enough that’s it’s specifically mentioned in that “are we the baddies” video. They’re wearing it too.
Yes, we all see so many of those on a day-to-day basis, and photos from the time are such high-def it’s astounding that anyone could miss it!
(/s, just in case)
You asked for “a single screenshot” and claimed people couldn’t produce one, I showed you a whole sketch specifically about the symbol, and now the goalposts have moved to “high definition photos that I personally see on a daily basis.”
Oh great, you’ve proven that there’s a wikipedia article for it. This is proof that anyone who hasn’t already stumbled upon it by chance is clearly a willfully ignorant nazi! /s
The only reason you’re even linking it now is because we’re already discussing it. My whole point is that hardly anybody knew what this symbol was prior to the discussion around Platner.
Now find a movie, TV show, book, comic, or video game that depicts that symbol on a nazi. Because that’s what I meant from the start and you know it.
Read my other comments. I link this because this is the only real source, and for reference. A German! Wikipedia article.
No, nobody was an idiot for not seeing this, most Germans would not know that this was a Nazi symbol. And wearing those symbols is illegal here.
I fully admit I am not the smartest or best student of history. However I recall no lessons un symbolism in any history class other than ancient Egypt and Neolithic era or late Stone Age.
Make not mistake I am not supporting any hatred other than towards Nazis. However when I first saw the image I honestly thought it was from Warhammer or something.
Yeah, I thought it looked tacky and stupid. I wouldn’t have gotten it myself. But I also didn’t know it was a nazi symbol until I read about it in the context of platner. Never would have guessed.
Ok, after some closer look, it could resemble the SS “Mützenabzeichen”, but it could also just be a generic skull.
BTW, the British atme are no nazis are they? https://www.army.mod.uk/learn-and-explore/about-the-army/corps-regiments-and-units/royal-armoured-corps/royal-lancers/
I can not say what exactly that tattoo was there is no clear image I found, so I can not jump to conclusions in any direction.
The British symbol looks nothing like a totenkopf, the tattoo looks exactly like a totenkopf, 1-to-1 on every detail, no matter how much people try to pretend otherwise.
If you have an image that shows that much detail, please provide it. I really want to see it. I have not seen any. I see some black blobs/outlines that’s all.
And from what I can see, the eyes would be different than on the SS version, and details in the bones are also not visible.
Still, it could be like you said the exact version. I can not tell.
And of course does the UK skull not look like this. But: skull on bone is a common symbol. Look for the example at this pre-nazi Symbol.
If we don’t question the given facts, and form our own opinion, we are not better then the real Nazis.
Discrediting political opponents was part of their playbook.
(I am a German anitfaschist, breaking Nazi bones since 2000, and I am not here to defend anyone, just to animate independent thinking)
But: skull on bone is a common symbol. Look for the example at this pre-nazi Symbol.
First off, that symbol is less similar to the tattoo than then totenkomf (that it 100% is). Second, you could also pull up images of swastikas that predate the Nazis. Should I also suspend judgement if I see someone with a swastika tattooed on their chest?
If we don’t question the given facts, and form our own opinion, we are not better then the real Nazis.
This is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say in this context. I’m seeing a picture that is, very clearly and obviously, a totenkomf, a Nazi symbol. And all I’m doing is calling it a Nazi symbol. And somehow, describing the thing that’s right in front of my eyes makes me “no better than a Nazi.”
I don’t think it’s a totenkopf because I was told it was by some influence campaign to discredit a politician, I know it’s a totenkopf because I have eyes.
I mean, come on! “The Nazis discredited their opponents too.” Ok then, should I not consider Trump discredited, for fear of being like a Nazi? Sure, my eyes have seen him palling around with Jeffery Epstein, but there’s any number of excuses people use, if they really want to. I think there was one narrative that he was just infiltrating the secret pedophile ring to take it down from the inside.
The reality is that there’s this enormous pushback whenever anyone tries to hold any politician to any standard whatsoever. It’s like some kind of internalized authoritarianism. It’s “boys will be boys” dialed up to 11.
I can say with 100% certainty based on the pictures presented that that was a totenkomf. Hell, if it wasn’t, why didn’t he provide pictures to prove otherwise? But no matter what evidence is presented, it’s always possible to just demand high and higher standards of proof to protect politicians from any scrutiny.
First, i never said YOU did not think! How do you assume i have this opinion of you? I said as much as you may be right!
Second, i did the work to CONFORM your statement, something i asked for repeatedly from people that state “trust me bro, this is true”.
Here we go, 5 minute gimp job. But asking for proof is considered hostile now? WTF???
Thanks a lot!
he only covered it when pressured by national outcry, he spent his adult life with a nazi tattoo and never regretted it.
I fucking hate nazi apologists.
🌽
I would take one hundred Platners if it meant turning a swing state Blue. How much Nazi rape do you’ll think there will be in MAGA concentration camps if Republicans keep their majority until the end of Trump’s term?
If Platner withdraws, we have until 5pm on July 27th to run a new progressive candidate. Remember how well that worked for Biden and Harris?
I’ll take an unproven and lone rape allegation with a blurry tattoo over decades of past and future Republican violence against women any day of the week.
The rape allegation is pretty credible. Unless they’ve fabricated old texts and emails and gotten multiple people to lie about hearing her talk about it, it’s legit. I have been a staunch Platner supporter and fought through a lot of bullshit and bad-faith Astroturfing against him, but this one isn’t setting off my bullshit alarms. And it will kill his campaign.
However, if he drops, there are three solid options. First is Troy Jackson, an older guy who will vote exactly the same but looks like he golfs instead of like he kills people. Or Janet Mills, which would be a little frustrating but honestly pretty good as old-guard Dems go. Forgot the name of the third, but she’s a young woman with progressive stances and would also be great. Odds are Platner will drop out and one of them will get the nomination by some emergency means, likely not a proper election.
I hope it’s Troy Jackson. He did decently in the primary and is the best drop-in replacement for Platner.
I see, nazis are only bad then conservatives have them.
Even if I did think Platner was a reformed or crypto-fascist Nazi, it sure would beat the open and proud and practiced Nazism of MAGA conservatives happening now.
Of course, the Overton window has been shoved so far to the right that even modern progressives seem to the right of the Republican party before Regan. Hell, maybe there are some Democratic Nazis? But I don’t see very many of them.
If a shitty tattoo and the Marine Corps make Platner a Nazi, then I’ve got some bad news for you buddy.
he was a blackwater Merc. who reminisced about killing brown people in interviews.
you are still making excuses for a rapist with nazi tattoos.
you don’t get to complain that trump is a rapist, or the Nazis in government if make excuses for that cunt.
Oh, so you like concentration camps and ICE thugs, and blowing up schools in Iran because you’d allow the MAGA steamroller to continue by refusing to allow a blue swing state senate candidate to even run?
You don’t get to complain the Platner is a Nazi rapist when you’re allowing MAGA to continue unabated. You’re making excuses to let Trump control congress for another two years, you must really love rape and murder!
See how that works?
So your solution for Nazis in the government, is Nazi in the government?
You aren’t solving shit, you want the same problems but with your team on top
Believing that the world is just black and white, good or evil is a really idiotic way of thinking.
Are realy going to “lets not think in absolutes” when it comes to allowing nazis into politics?
Fucking Blue MAGA cult.
You sound as if Trump ran for democrats with the exact same personality and policies you would have voted for him.
I’m saying all your choices suck but some suck a smidgen less. It’s what you get when you create a pile of shit full of brainless idiots who can barely read.
you’re still making excuses for a nazi.
and it’s bullshit, is your conclusion is that everyone in main was a nazi merc?
Blue MAGA is the same death cult as MAGA, it isn’t a fucking sport, the goal isn’t to get your team to win, but to manage a national. And nazis belong underground, not on the ballots.
every single person who supported him was a literal nazi supporter.
at least you blue Nazis draw the line at raping white women. y’all didn’t give a fuck about him killing brown people for money.
I been saying fuck him since day 1, but calling him or his supporters Nazi is flat-out ridiculous. He was an ex-Nazi at worst.
Anyone can and should fix their ideology but nobody can undo their actions. Killing peoples for fun, and [very likely] sexually assaulting women can not be undone
he kept his nazi tattoos until there was national pressure.
every day he woke up with a nazi tattoo and decided to keep it. yhea, it’s a nazi.
don’t gaslight me, “people can change”, then point to a blackwater merc with a nazi tattoo. yhea, they can, he didn’t.
under that logic, you can’t be mean to Elon, because he can change.
And even if he changed, I don’t want a Blackwater merc that had a nazi tattoo either.
Nobody, including him, knew it was a nazi tattoo until the smear campaigns. Who associates cartoonish skulls with Nazis except nerds with a special interest in a specific German military unit in WW2?
PS. Yes, that’s how gaslighting works. The first to call it is being gaslighted. Not the person saying that words are meaningless and are equal to Elon’s imaginary words. gtfoh
Dude.
Dude.
There are Celtic symbols that Nazis like to use that make you wonder if the person is a Nazi or just ignorant of what that symbol looks like.
This ain’t that.
This is a 100 percent Nazi tattoo. Don’t blame the world for your ignorance, or try and justify your ignorance by ascribing it to the world. This is your ignorance.
so, you decided to defend a blackwater Merc with a nazi tattoo by complaining about those who pointed it out. and you’re so making excuses for him, even after the rape allegations.
are you sure you want to be that kind of person?
Now, this is gaslighting. Bizarre you try it on a public forum with written record.
I am not defending a Blackwater Merc that run for politics with Nazi tattoos who has rape allegations.
The bar couldn’t be lower.
Now I know that if there is a Blue Trump idiots will vote for him
he had that tattoo for 18 years. Did he never see an SS uniform in a movie or something? Did he never see a picture of a concentration camp guard? Pretty sure I’d recognise my tattooes if I had any. Here is him commenting under one such picture https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/_/ehbh3n6/?context=4
This exact skull is what SS deaths head units are named for, you know, the ones that were working the concentration camps? It’s so well known that this is the skull the “are we the baddies” sketch is about. You can see it everywhere in pictures about the death camps. And this guy was frequenting military history subs. Guess what’s on the cap of Heinrich Himmler? It’s not the “runes” it’s the totenkopf. The reason that sketch chose that skull is because of it’s prominence.
I was that day years old when I learned what a totenkopf was. A basic picture would’ve made me say “Oh, nice pirate tattoo.” Even after he gets the tattoo, it wouldn’t come up in conversation much if it’s under his shirt, and not in his own field of vision.
I have watched movies about the holocaust and that particular symbol never comes up. I don’t know why people so readily assume it must be common knowledge.
“But you know now!” Yes! And so did Graham! So what’s the point?
Because it is.
You don’t know what a black sun is? Okay, I can get that.
You don’t know what a deaths head is? That’s on you.
People on the left were so desperate for the representation that the center does everything it can to deny them that they were willing to ignore some pretty glaring red flags.
The left is sad that a republican is gonna win now. Centrists are happy.
Keep gloating about lost hope.
See, this right fucking here is exactly it. I’m not American but this would be my exact frustration with the situation if I were.
People on the left were so desperate for the representation
There have been plenty of criticism aimed at corporations, for example, and how their support for progressive movements was mainly performative, such as rainbow logos during pride month. It was often described as “pinkwashing” or “rainbow-washing.”
And that’s just scratching surface.
#/media/Datei:German_SS_uniform._Peaked_visor_cap_with_skull_emblem_(Totenkopf)._Norwegian_Armed_Forces_Museum_(Forsvarsmuseet)_Oslo,_Norway_2019-03-31_DSC01646_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}