Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner addresses claims about Nazi-linked tattoo
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PORTLAND, Maine —
Maine oyster farmer and military veteran Graham Platner, who is running for U.S. Senate, has addressed claims made by his political opponents that he has a tattoo affiliated with Nazis.
Platner appeared on "Pod Save America," a political podcast hosted by former aides to former President Barack Obama, and provided video to host Tommy Vietor that showed the Democratic candidate in his underwear at his brother's wedding in 2015, lip-syncing to the Miley Cyrus song "Wrecking Ball."
Platner's team shared the video with the podcast because the video shows Platner has a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest, which some of his political opponents claim is the symbol "Totenkopf," German for "death's head."
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) adopted a particular Totenkopf image as a symbol during the Nazi era. The ADL said it became a symbol of the SS branch responsible for guarding the concentration camps, and that many members of that branch became the core of an SS division that engaged in a number of war crimes during World War II.
Platner said he got the tattoo in 2007, during his third deployment with the U.S. Marine Corps.
"We went ashore in Split, Croatia, myself and a few of the other machine gun squad leaders, and we got very inebriated and we just did what Marines on liberty do and we decided to go get a tattoo," Platner said. "We chose a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines and skulls and crossbones are a pretty standard military thing, and we got those tattoos and then we all moved on with our lives."
Platner later joined the Army National Guard and got screened at a Military Entrance Processing Station, a process that determined he met the physical, mental and moral standards set by the Army.
Army policy prohibits soldiers from having tattoo designs that contain any offensive, extremist or hateful words or images. Company commanders perform annual inspections of tattoos so that the tattoos remain within Army regulations. Soldiers who have tattoos that do not meet the Army's restrictions are counseled, and then have 15 days to explain to commanders whether they will have the tattoos removed or altered. Soldiers who do not comply face potential separation.
In addition, Platner said he received a full screening when he went to work for the State Department as a contractor. He was cleared for a security detail for the ambassador for Afghanistan in 2018.
"At no point in this entire experience of my life did anybody ever once say: 'Hey, you're a Nazi.' It never came up until we got wind that in the opposition research, somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo," Platner said on the podcast . "I can honestly say that if I was trying to hide it, I've not been doing a very good job for the past 18 years."
The podcast appearance comes on the heels of Platner's political director, former State Rep. Genevieve McDonald, resigning over controversial comments Platner made in the past on the social media platform Reddit.
Platner addressed those Reddit comments, which had been deleted, during an interview with Maine's Total Coverage.
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A Nazi tattoo.. No wonder the Bernie Sanders progressives are his biggest supporters.
They'll probably rationalize supporting him because although they know he's a Nazi, he must stop Susan Collins who sometimes votes in favor of someone who they are convinced is a Nazi even if they have no evidence of it.
I love the part where we get to see the tattoo.
Spoiler: we don’t. Journalism sucks anymore.
Anyway, I googled it, and it’s totally the Totenkopf. Does this make him a Nazi or a wannabe Nazi? Not necessarily. Unfortunately, nazis and similar groups have appropriated certain symbols for their own use and ruined them for everyone else.
If I were him, I would look into getting it turned into something else.
I don’t know anything about the guy, but the fact that he is willing to say he said or did stuff earlier in his life that he doesn’t believe in now is actually somewhat promising. We can all change and grow. In fact, that seems like a worthy goal for anyone.
They act like the people are stupid. Every gesture from their opponents is a Nazi gesture or a Nazi symbol.
Can anyone answer this:
Maybe because it’s not news worthy or surprising when actual NAZI’s give a NAZI salute?
Three things I’ve never had because they just have a tendency to age horribly, hurt people accidentally, or straight up get you fired - tattoos, guns, and social media. If you don’t have them you not only don’t have to worry about those downsides but you are more unique than everyone who gets these things in an effort to make themselves unique. Go to the beach and you can probably count on one hand the number of people who have not gotten inked.
I've never had a tattoo , never owned a gun, but I do dabble a tiny bit in social media. I mostly use it as a news curator, which twitter is very good at if you know how to do it.
Tattoos have always struck me as kind of freakish, like a carnival sideshow act. I am willing to admit objection to tattoos is probably age specific though.
My Apple News app does a good job of aggregating. More and more sources are throwing up paywalls though. I can still see the article title though, so if it sounds interesting I just google the topic to look for free sources. Didn’t even have to download an app, it just comes with the phone.
I once considered a tattoo and got as far as drawing it out. This was about 30 years ago, and at that time it would have had meaning and a message. I would be embarrassed to have it now. Symbolism and taboo ebb and flow in cultures over time. I imagine a lot of people experience tattoo regret.
Yes, there was a time when people were clean cut.
... 1939
A time when those with tattoos you consider "Untermensch"?
Well he can flip easily to being a Republican because they will embrace him.
Not a single democrat has called on him to stop running. Of course, How could the party of talib and mamdani do that? A guy with a literal SS tattoo. The people who claim to see Nazi dog whistles everywhere, just go on with their business as usual. The same party that was freaking out over text messages from 25 year old nobides is fine with a literal Nazi
progressive hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Other than the tattoo, is there a reason they should?
It’s not exclusively an SS tattoo.
It’s like 3000 pages of text messages and they’re explicitly expressing Nazi white supremacy ideology. There’s no room for any other interpretation.
So, adults. Apparently, politically organized adults who support the Republican Party. And rather than condemn the content of their texts, Republicans are trying to dismiss them as not important or young and dumb.
So you agree leftists should never had demanded Hegseth be removed from consideration or resign as DoW because of his tattoos.
Good to know.
No one will ever accuse me of being overly soft on Democrats. But even up to yesterday if someone asked me, "will Democrats reject a candidate for branding the symbology of the most despicable part of the most heinous regime on their body?" I would say yes. Sure, they might be incredible hypocrites with almost no principles or standards other than obtaining power, but no SS tattoos is a such a low bar even they would require their candidates to clear it. They maybe all too eager to appropriate the symbology of communist regimes that murdered 100 million people, but at least, at the very least, they understand how destructive and reprehensible the Nazi regime was.
Can’t even say that anymore. Now they are waiting to see what the voters say. They are perfectly willing to caucus with a Nazi if the Nazi can win.
I doubt it., Hegseth had a cross and to a progressive that's worse than an SS Totenkopf
That is very true. They react like vampires to a cross.
My guess is this guy is really a conservative, but he knew no Republican would accept him if the word of his tattoo would get out, but that progressives would just shrug it off as "meh, it's just a tattoo".
He was right.
the stupidest comment today
See 5.1.8 for what you seek
I don’t know of anyone who called for that based solely on his tattoos. But then I don’t spend a lot of time obsessing over that stuff, like some people apparently do.
Knowing does not equal wisdom.
You seem to be exclusively focused on the tattoo, so i will repeat my question.
Other than the tattoo, is there a reason Democrats - or anyone else - should not support him?
I don’t recall seeing anything in the seed that mentioned what party he belonged to, so I was not considering that.
That's easy to do when the "tattoo inspections" weren't being carried out. The tattoo policy looks good on paper but is very rarely carried out. During my career the ONLY tattoo inspection I had was in 1998. Served 26 years and only one "inspection" under this policy was carried out.
So, yes, I'm questioning that it was seen in the first place.
I see democrats being called hypocrites all up and down this seed. Well, this is one Democrat who won't go that route. He needs to drop out. I was reading about this on Blue Sky yesterday. He told an aquaintance that it is his totenkopf. He knows what it is and what it means.
Drop out of the race, Platner and democrats get your heads out of your asses. Be better than our MAGA alternatives
I don't need or want your approval
Don't care.
Democrats need to get their heads out of their asses, but agreeing with MAGA fanatics is not the right way to go about. Trumpism would not survive without "whataboutism". "Bothsidesism" is by far the biggest impediment to bringing sanity back.
Trump was allowed by our media to claim that he was the victim in the 2020 election , the Mueller investigation and the documents case. We have right wing members on here now who do almost nothing but "both sides" or "whatabout" every vile thing Trump does, saying there is an equivalent or worse on the left. Its all nonsense.
A little way up this seed there is an image of a social media post by Libs Of Tik Tok, a far right social media creator, purporting to show various Democrats giving a nazi salute. Induldge me by letting me post this long analysis
The nazi salutes pictured up top are fake, I'm sure.
I'm not doing whataboutism here, John. I'm stating an opinion that I wished was shared by more like minded people. I'm not going full turd MAGA here. I just want people to stop saying one thing and then doing another.
If we are to have any credibility we have to condemn people like Platner.
This is by far one of the dumbest fact checks ever published.
Of course those people were not giving nazi salutes, however, correctly, those on the right only pointed out the stupidity of many on the left when they tried to say certain people on the right were giving nazi salutes when it was obvious they were only waving to crowds.
Somebody wasted their time typing so much to prove absolutely nothing.
I'm not going to reply on this to Bugsy because it would be a waste of time. The reason Musk was accused of making a Nazi salute is because it looks like a Nazi salute. In the video we see Musk throw his arm out in a forceful way, somewhat similar to this
Elon Musk has chosen to associate himself with far right elements in Europe that are associated with neo-Nazism.
Elon Musk spoke at an AfD rally. So it is natural to wonder what Musk is doing in the photo, it is not natural to wonder what the Democrats are doing.
I couldnt care less about Platner, he is not worth the trouble.
Trump and his cultism cannot be defended, but bothsideism lets them get that foot in the door.
Elon definitely threw a nazi salute
it comes natural to him ...
The pictures you posted above look EXACTLY the same as what Elon is doing.
There is only one reason why you don't see the similarities.
I just posted a Newsweek fact check that shows the Democrats were not doing a Nazi salute. They were waving to their audiences.
It is NOT unfair to wonder if Musk was unconsciously doing a Nazi salute BECAUSE he has chosen to associate with neo Nazi sympathizers.
[✘]
TG, I am not criticizing your disapproval of this Democrat talked about in the seed, it sounds like he is not good candidate material. What I am saying is that bothsidesism is hurting this country badly, and a good part of why Trump is now claiming we owe him 230 million dollars.
see my comment in 7.2.1