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The real question is why are there still so many people supporting the establishment?
because the vast majority of the country is uninformed, and doesnt care about anything… and certainly politics most of all, beyond the tip of their own nose.
and will continue to not care, until their life personally becomes inconvenienced by political bullshit… and by then, thanks to their lack of care and investment, they’ll be more likely to agree with the side that causes them to do the least amount of effort to care or correct it… even if that means voting for the people who caused it in the first place, because all they heard was sweet words and any consequence must be that other sides fault.
The democratic establishment has labeled him a communist one day, a Nazi the next day and an antifascist another day. You can’t be an antifascist and a Nazi at the same time.
I listened to the entire Pod Save interview with him, and I’m convinced he’s a solid dude who made some bad decisions when he was younger. He owns up to absolutely everything, and says he has learned from it. He sounded completely genuine to me.
His background is really important and honestly explains all of this controversy away. He was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours, and he talks an about how much that fucked him up. He struggled for a long time and shitposting was one of his outlets. Who among us hasn’t regretted something we’ve posted? Owning up to and learning from it is the key.
If we want to stop electing vanilla spineless establishment candidates, the alternative is electing normal people who haven’t spent their lives hiding themselves from public view to maintain a “clean” persona. Nobody is perfect, everybody has made mistakes, and to me the strength of a candidate comes through most clearly when they take responsibility and demonstrate how their current self has evolved from their younger selves.
He seems like an awesome candidate to me.
He had that tattoo for years after it was clear he knew what it meant, you really are going to trust someone is a good candidate that not only did several tours in Iraq but was hired by fucking Blackwater to continue killing because he stated he enjoyed it? If this is the best candidate in the state we are so truly fucked, I refuse to believe there is no one better that could run.
Nobody is perfect but are you kidding me with this? You really are going to say this guy is awesome, who stated essentially “millions may die because our way of life is better”, had no problem with being a for-profit war criminal less than ten years ago, because he claims he has good views on healthcare. I agree people change but that doesn’t mean he should be trusted in a position of power.
Have you ever heard of Smedley Butler?
You got a link for the interview? I’ve only read a few articles but I am interested
For sure, here’s the whole thing.
Sorry but no, he knew, that’s disqualifying
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
Don’t let the act fool you
Sorry if I missed it, but where in the article does it say he knew?
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
Ah sorry, I missed that as its third hand information. Thought you meant there was verifiable info.
You know most tattoo artists know Nazi symbols very well, right? You know he’d have to seek out shady artists to get a Nazi tattoo professionally done, right?
Yeah I understand your narrative, its just I was expecting your link to have evidence.
In america, sure. In Croatia? I believe it
Who of us hasn’t done some edgy shitposting? A tattoo is just a shitpost on your own body.
A rather permanent Nazi shitpost is way beyond what most do, and keeping it and lying about it makes it worse
But he didn’t keep it he covered it up
How private reddit account that was extremely anti everything Nazis stand for pretty handily show that he isn’t and wasn’t a Nazi, if that account didn’t exist in sure many many more people would be more skeptical
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
100% this.
Leftist out here doing stupid purity tests, looking for some fairy tale candidate messiah. Gatekeeping anyone who isnt some perfect being. Because that’s representative of the normal human experience…
The tattoo thing was ALWAYS overblown. Anyone who knows marines, especially young shithead marines, knew that tattoo thing was stupid. I believe that he and his fellow marines didn’t know what it was when he got it. Because most people just learned what it was. So many people just now, this week, hearing the word “totenkopf” for the first time in their lives and feigning outrage.
I’ll even give you that maybe he found out later, knew what it was, but didn’t have it covered. And why?
Because it didn’t matter. That’s not what the tattoo meant to him, and its not what anyone around him thought it was. He had no pressing reason to cover it. Maybe it even served as a reminder of his shithead past.
It wasn’t until he got into the public eye when a bunch of terminally online nitpickers lost their shit that it actually became an issue to him to fix.
And he did fix it IMMEDIATELY.
And I’ve yet to see anyone who smugly reacted to the initial story with “so he got it covered right? right?” eat their words. Instead they’ve doubled down and moved the goal posts to “well, he should have had it covered forever ago”. Insufferable bullshit.
My brother in law, also a prior marine, had tattoos of clovers. Because he’s Irish and thought they were cool. It wasn’t until after his service that he learned that clovers are common with skinheads. And because he want a job in teaching, he got them covered.
This shit happens all the time. People making a stink about it are so far out of touch. They either need to touch grass, pull the stick out of their ass or the silver spoon out of their throat.
The privileged pearl clutching to instead defer support to another Biden/Pelosi/Schumer corpo dinosaur is pathetic.
Dems are great at talking themselves out of EVERY candidate, leaving us nothing but MAGAs.
Could you imagine if a strong, intelligent person like Elizabeth Warren was president? America, and the world, would be a much better, far less chaotic, place in the universe.
This isn’t a purity test. He knew
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
Even if he knew. Young soldiers doing stupid edgy stuff is par for the course. SS skull? Looks badass, man! That’s about the amount of thought that went into that.
Less thought was put into choosing that tattoo than the next bar to visit.
Then don’t wait until years later when you’re called out in the media to remove it. He knew, he kept lying about it.
Whatever, be mad forever then. I hope your perfect lefty savior shows up for you. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll still be able to vote when they do.
Anything is better than a Nazi, I’m not asking for perfection
Except he’s very clearly not a Nazi.
I’ll take a reformed Nazi over Janet Mills or Susan Collins.
Removing a tattoo is very expensive and very painful. Anyone would put it off for as long as possible.
Then at least don’t lie about it
You’re right, you should vote for the Nazi candidates that are proud to be a Nazis, and are promoting Nazi policies. That will teach those good Dem candidates…to not run for office.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a stroke before getting into office. 😒
Y’all got to be careful with this. Because some people actually believe a stroke is what caused Fetterman to be what he is now. Instead of the actual truth which was he was always this and people just didn’t bother to, you know, actually check on his background and his past statements. You can’t fall for campaign rhetoric and think what they say when they’re running for something is who they really are. I say this because frankly it seems extremely relevant on this topic. Who is this guy really?
For REAL, this Platner dude is going to get elected and turn out to be a literal social fascist and people will be shocked somehow. Do people forget that a candidate can just say whatever they want to get your vote?
This guy is bad news unfortunately
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
Ugh so true. Fuck Fetterman.
He seemed to have some cracks before he got elected that came out later on after his stroke fully dropped him into magat territory
This right here. He’s had to work for his principles which means he’s more likely to stick by them. I believe he means well and wants to step up, not just get power and bribes or maintain the status quo. Nice to see how scared the billionaires are of him.
He’s currently lying about now having known, despite evidence now being out that he knew what kind of tattoo he had gotten. And he did nothing about it until now. And just replaced it with other norse mythology.
So no.
If it “fucked him up”, why did he work for BLACKWATER after his discharge from the military?
They pay well and need people with soldiering skills.
That’s a totally legit question, and the host followed up with that same rebuttal during the interview. I won’t get his exact wording right, but his answer was something to the effect of him still being fucked up when he went back as a contractor, but thinking that seeing things from the other side might be better (pretty sure he worked in diplomatic security as a contractor). But it turned out to be worse, and seeing it from that side ended up being the thing that convinced him how pointless it all was. He also said it was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me even if it’s not something I would ever do.
He also said **terrorizing and killing brown people" was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me
Yup. He’s a piece of shit who’s campaigning for giving more money to war criminals like him. People who want to call themselves leftists bend over backwards to honor and respect “veterans” who wasted their lives fighting for ~democracy and freedom~ subjecting other nations to American terrorism to enforce the empire is EXACTLY WHY nothing will ever get better.
Have principals, and refuse to back people who are principally apposed to your principals.
Edit: downvote you right wing bootlickers. In his own words after going to Iraq three times and loving murdering Iraqis so much he did it again with blackwater, he has this to say:
I served for ten years overseas. I know what sacrifice looks like. And I also know this country is failing far too many of its veterans. I will NEVER turn my back on the men and women who served. If you put on that uniform, then this country owes you a lifetime of respect and support.
We owe him a lifetime of respect and support for what he did? Fuck him and fuck you if you support war criminals as soon as they can themselves progressive.
Is there any evidence that he specifically committed war crimes or are you just assuming that literally every military person by default is a war criminal because words are meaningless when faced with self righteous anger from privileged white kids
Coming back to the civilian world is hard as fuck, especially if you woke up during your time with the military. You get home and people call you a hero for what amounts to crimes against humanity, and if you try to explain the horror to them you get labeled crazy and dangerous. Nobody wants to hear that their government is run by mass murdering psychopaths and nobody wants to believe that “defense” is a myth that tricked their friends/family into participating in said mass murder. I was lucky enough to have the financial and emotional support to spend a year just working on myself, but i still have times where something will remind me of what I’ve seen and been part of and all I can do is hide myself and cry, and it still makes me uncomfortably furious when I hear people who have never experienced meaningful violence in their lives wish it upon others. I completely understand why some people who get home and immediately have to work to survive turn to a career with people who can at least understand/accept them and their trauma. It can feel like the only other option is isolation until inevitable suicide.
That’s such a valuable perspective, thanks for sharing your experience.
The fact that the people pushing against Platner—by mischaracterizing his personal growth and discounting his trauma—are the very people who sent you guys to war unnecessarily, makes it even more infuriating. This is a disgusting move from Democratic leadership.
No, sorry, he’s the one who mischaracterized his own growth. Or the lack of it.
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
This guy ain’t no Mamdani
He worked for Constellis, for 6months. Stop spreading disinformation.
Constellis is Blackwater. They changed their name to escape bad PR. Seems like it’s working to some degree.
Its not even hard to find ethier lmao. Literally one fucking Google search for “blackwater name change” gets results that list their former and current names.
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.
Discussion point: Graham Platner has some very questionable aspects to their backstory.
I say this as both an unabashed leftist, and a veteran. I was downloading MP3’s of Democracy Now! and discussing Zinn with my section chief in 2003.
I propose the following material for review:
Don Lemon and Wajahat on the matter of Portner
I say this as someone who has met with Platner and as part of an organization I volunteer with, we endorsed Platner about 5 days before this came out. I’ve been on the endorsements committee, and we’ve never previously had to rescind an endorsement.
I’m interested in what you, Lemmy, have to say on this matter.
Im pretty wary… i think hes probably got a bit of authoritarian streak and probably got this tat when he was young and dumb and in the military which leans right. I also think people change and he has changed. I think he’s taken a hard left on the economy and class consciousness.
But is his authoritarian streak gone? His reddit comments show that at the time of posting he had little sympathy for sexual assault victims and was at the very least kinda weird about black people. Hes also very pro gun, which I dont find to be an inherent issue and I even agree the left needs to be more prepared and armed, but when lined up with other problematic views it stresses me out. And I dont realllly trust all of his hand waving around the tattoo and reddit comments.
But maybe should we embrance that hes a bit of a bulldog in an era when the left is so toothless? Also its almost impossible to do worse than Susan Collins lol.
The guy knew what his tattoo was
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
I think we have to be very careful who we vote for these days. All candidates and parties are leaning into dishonesty and misdirection even more than usual, as they can see it being so very successful in the recent past, and they will continue to use it and push the boundaries on how much and how blatant manipulations they can get away with. What they say and what they actually do are trending in very divergent directions.
On the other hand, when we start looking for non-establishment candidates who haven’t been vetted and groomed for most of their professional lives, we need to understand that many of them, being actual humans, are going to have been wrong and stupid in the past, as we all are sometimes, and some of those things may be forgivable and some may not. In the age of social media, this is almost guaranteed to happen. The internet always remembers, and oppo research is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
One of the things I think we need to remember in this case is that some humans are still genuine creatures of thoughts and feelings and emotions that don’t always immediately lead us to a good place, and that people can and should improve and change and grow throughout their lives as their experiences do. If I was going to be judged on the political ideology I supported when I was an idiotic 15 year old no one would ever take me seriously ever again. But that might be a mistake. Because I like to think that I’ve grown quite a bit since then. I’ve read Plato’s Republic, understood most of it, and agreed with some of it. I consume a lot of information from a wide variety of sources, some of that information is not so good and sometimes it leads me astray. I’ll take responsibility for those mistakes, and I’ll genuinely try to do better. And I think other people should be given at least the opportunity to own their mistakes too. Instead of immediately dismissing somebody that said some bad shit once upon a time, go to the next step and ask them what they think about it now. Then ask them why they changed their mind, which is the much more important part I think.
Granted, some people are just predators and opportunists, and will say whatever they think their current audience wants to hear, including what you want to hear. Distinguishing these types of the people from the people who have genuinely changed is not easy and I don’t have an easy answer for how to do it. I’m wrong most of the time when I try too. I don’t pretend to be a good judge of character.
I’m preaching this point of view in the hopes that other people, who are perhaps better judges of character than I am, can find some way to identify the difference themselves. Because we desperately need to find a way to put some genuine people in leadership roles. Our current system of democracy clearly isn’t doing it. For this moment in history, I think we need a philosopher-king.
I think I agree strongly with this. The dude has MUCH explaining to do, but he deserves the oppurtunity to do so. When I’ve seen him speak publically, he’s a once in a lifetime speaker. But dude did get nazi tattoo. Dude did work for blackwater. Those are extraordinary things, which he also hasn’t denied or deflected.
And extraordinary things require extraordinary explanation. I don’t think these are deal breakers, but surely a period of explanation and reflection is warranted.
The four tours and Blackwater employment made him a Nazi before his tattoos did 😮💨
Four tours, as a veteran, like… I’m not excusing it, but some of the most anti-fascist people I know did multiple tours. I saw the writing on the wall and didn’t re-enlist but everyone’s situation and place that they are is different.
Of the people who have done several orders of magnitude more work to stop fascism, real, physical, on the ground work, all of them are military service members who saw active duty. One did two tours, and was at Falluja, and another had his humvee blown up from underneath him when command told his company to go drive a road they knew for a fact had IED’s. One went on to be a DJ (actually he might do lighting idk), the other became a nurse and worked directly with Dr. Faucci at the CDC. Both were raised extremely conservative, and because they were given an opportunity to become a person they actually wanted to be, they changed.
Yeah I basically agree with you here about your comrades based on the information you have given me, but the thing is you’re implicitly conditioning your judgement of your comrades on their behavior after their K tours, I was implicitly (and now explicitly) conditioning my judgement about Platner on his four tours and Blackwater employment plus his behavior after that. Like I know people can change, IMO that is the thesis of my worldview, but Platner has not provided sufficient evidence that he has changed for the better. Furthermore, someone doing K > 1 tours is not just an ordinary evil thing, it’s an incredibly evil thing, so forgive me if it takes a lot lot lot of good to be done before I start to consider their debt to humanity paid off.
Furthermore, someone doing K > 1 tours is not just an ordinary evil thing, it’s an incredibly evil thing, so forgive me if it takes a lot lot lot of good to be done before I start to consider their debt to humanity paid off.
And thats totally fair.
From someone with absolutely no horse in this race I feel this is looking a gift horse in the mouth. No matter how bad he turns out to be (which, yeah, I don’t think I’m convinced he’ll be a principled anti-imperialist in office), he’s not going to outdo establishment democrats by much. The way American democracy is going it’s worth the bet, I think.
For this race, I agree. The worst he can be is a Fetterman… Who sucks but is still better than fucking Dr. Oz.
But be careful with this line of thinking. It’s very similar to how the right ended up voting for Trump. It’s actually how a lot of really awful governments gained power. “Anything different” than the current catastrophe does not inherently mean better.
My point was more that you lose if you get anything to the right of an outspoken progressive, and given the speed of Trump’s consolidation of power the amount of loss is essentially unchanged. Therefore, better on someone who might realistically be an outspoken progressive is the optimal move. It’s kind of like “you can get bitch slapped, or you can toss a coin and you either get bitch slapped extra hard or get a cookie.” The damage is being done either way, so you might as well bet on the cookie.
I dunno. I feel like a few countries made a similar bet (but to a higher extreme) during the Arab spring and it went extra bad. It’s important to be careful about who and what you’re trying to replace an authoritarian system with.
Follow the money. Maybe he’s a shill and maybe not, but at this point I’d be very surprised if the oligarchy relied solely on voter appeal to get their candidate in office. If the usual suspects start running the usual “he’s a communist” campaign then I’d say it’s pretty safe they don’t support him.
the usual “he’s a communist”
They running that at the same time they saying he’s a secret nazi
I think Platner isn’t as skilled at avoiding establishment Democrat smear campaigns as Mamdani is.
either a Nazi or a dumbass, neither make a good candidate imo.
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt until I actually saw the tattoo on his chest. That isn’t some generic skull artwork, that is literally the totenkopf. Even the swastika has more ambiguity than this does. There is no way the dude went that long without knowing what it was and had more than plenty of time to remove the tattoo before making a push for the senate. If he wants to regret the decision and make amends thats great but he gets to start with his local council or some other low level political office and work his way up. Only by doing that can he prove that symbol does not reflect his worldview
I suppose that depends where you are from. In the US almost no average person could tell you what the totenkoph is. Let alone ID it. Everyone could ID a swastika. Though not tell the difference between Sanskrit or Nazi.
I had to look it up to remind myself even. I’m most familiar with it as a piece of iconography the neo folk group Death In June has used several times.
I mean I could not have told you that it was a white nationalist symbol. It just looked like a cartoon skull to me.
thats great but he gets to start with his local council or some other low level political office and work his way up
So I saw this being put out by a (former) Republican turned Democrat consultant on a podcast yesterday. It smacks of the kind of gatekeeping that has kept establishment Democrats in control of the party but losing elections for decades.
I understand why we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good but we’re not talking about another Al Franken here. This guy has/had a literal Nazi tattoo and that takes a lot more effort to erase from the sum of actions that equals a person
What’s the issue with mills?
If elected, she’d be 79 years old when she’d be sworn in as a freshman congressperson. Senate terms are 6 years. Solid shot at another democrat dying in office again with this one
Platner polls well and is much younger and has run very well with young people and progressives. He polls well against the incumbent republican. The talk for months before Mills entered the race was that Schumer was trying to get her to run
Now there’s stuff coming out about Platner and the Maine race may be screwed regardless. Mills is a bad pick anyways. Biden 2020 level pick for the same reason of too old and not setting up younger generations. Even 60 years old is solid for 2-3 terms before you really get scared that they’re going to Dianne Feinstein themselves in office
Another Pelosi/Schumer democrat.
I get the sense she is a business-as-usual Democrat
That matters far more than the stuff I’m seeing about age, which, honestly, I’m just so sick of hearing about. Seems like the age thing is part of a psyops that some are getting fooled by. It’s quite obvious because I don’t tend to see this kind of fracturing in the Confederate Party - they lined up and voted for Taco even though he has one foot in the grave, and I heard almost none of them talking about his age…
It’s about the policies and the positions. Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller are both very young and I wouldn’t want them or anything like them anywhere near government. Bernie is quite old, and I do want him in government…
Can they be dead and burried instead? Replaced by democratic socialists and progressives.
Then run. If he’s not good enough for you, if he’s not passing your purity tests and you’ve lived such an infallible life… then run for office. Put up.
