US Senate candidate Graham Platner reassures transgender Mainer he will fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Despite past controversies, he emphasizes growth and empathy. #GrahamPlatner
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.
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.