This thread makes me believe Heritage Foundation troll factories are now operating within Lemmy as well. Nobody can be this dense.
ITT: terminally online leftists who can’t imagine a dumb infantryman being clueless about a symbol
Even your charitable reading of the situation should still disqualify him to be a senator. Even if he’s not a nazi, we’re still left with him being clueless.
Yeah except if you read the article, he has called it what it is in the past according to others.
Keep trying to smear Graham, anybody that’s met him in person knows that he is an absolutely amazing person, and that a checkered past doesn’t define a person’s future.
To everyone jumping on the dog pile, at least he is trying to make a difference, an objectively positive change for the people of Maine. I live here, I trust that he is not the same person he was when he served because DECENT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF GROWTH AND CHANGE. Internet trolls in their mother’s Midwestern basement or some ComBlock housing unit in Moscow might have a difficult time understanding that.
Decent people can also remove a Nazi tattoo
I’m sorry, I make it a point not to take the word of PEOPLE WHO CAPITALIZE ALL-CAPS MID-SENTENCE at face value.
I’ve never heard of this dude before but I can tell you, that’s one big fucking change you’re expecting there… If he tattooed himself a nazi symbol without knowing what it is, his IQ is low enough that change means going from one dumb thing to another. You definitely don’t want him in a position of power, and if he’s such a good person as you say, then he’s not smart enough to understand he’s unqualified.
So you believe that IQ (or general intelligence, because IQ is a shot measurement of intelligence) cannot change through a person’s life?
Let’s say they changed their sleep habits, started eating healthy, and took time to get deeper cultural knowledge about humanity… Would it be possible?
Okay, so having learned that, the laser treatment to remove it is probably in his calendar already, right? And he’ll be able to show everyone that it’s removed quite soon?
Right?
Yes, he is getting it removed
I’m sure he won’t mind live streaming the removal then.
The guy with 5 separate compact tours with Blackwater mercenary who was deployed in the same time of Blackwater documented war crimes of killings and rapings in Ramadi and Faillujah, and kept rejoinging the same ill-trained war-criminal military contrator for 13 years of US imperalism invovlment in third-world countries that left them in poverty and ruins ?? Wait, he also has histroy of sexual assault allegations, rape and racist comments, and a nazi tattoo??
You got my vote!
I feel like you have to try to find a tattooist in Croatia in the mid aughts willing to ink an ss symbol on an American military member. Like I’ve never been there but I know in America it’s a pain in the ass to get a swastika or ss lightning bolt tattoo because most artists won’t do it, and this is America where we skim history in schools
I’m fairly certain it’s easier in Croatia than in most countries.
I’m still trying to figure out why wet are talking about the pirate symbol
But according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the “death’s head” symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.
“He said, 'Oh, this is my Totenkopf,” the former acquaintance told Jewish Insider recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “He said it in a cutesy little way.”
The exchange occurred in 2012 at Tune Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill where Platner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended The George Washington University on the G.I. bill, according to the former acquaintance. He would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, the former acquaintance recalled.
Platner gave varying accounts of the image during this time, saying at one point he was aware it was a Totenkopf when he had first gotten the tattoo several years prior and at another time claiming he had not known, according to the former acquaintance.
The mixed accounts indicate that Platner has at least long been aware of the symbols’s connection to Nazism, even as he said in the podcast interview he was not familiar with any such association when he chose to get the tattoo.
The source for this is Jewish Insider, which I’m sure people will say whatever they are going to say about that, but at some point this guys multiple red flags need to be taken as a pattern.
Dude has a very clear pattern of making questionable choices in the most favorable reading of circumstances. His former campaign manager said this when resigning over Grahams past comments:
“The words we choose to use online reflect who we are and what we stand for. While I am empathetic to Graham’s experiences and respect his personal journey and growth, I cannot overlook the volume and nature of his past comments, many of which were made as an adult, not as a young man.” McDonald said in her resignation letter.
Y’all need to stop apologizing for this guy and start looking for a better candidate to get behind so it isn’t Janet Mills in the general.
Hmm, looks like he was prejudice 10 years ago, and perhaps a white supremacist before that. But, he called rural-whites racist more recently (and they definitely are more racist in aggregate), so looks like his POV changed. IDK, that seems fine to me.
He has a nazi tattoo on his chest. Not, he got a nazi tattoo when he was young and drunk and didn’t know and as soon as he found out he got that shit covered up. He, to this day, has a Totenkopf tattoo. For the people in the back:
ANY CANDIDATE WITH A NAZI TATTOO IS A NON-STARTER.
Edit: Robert Evans sums it up well on Bluesky
i liked how Platner was campaigning and I am prepared to believe a young marine could make literally any stupid mistake. but I don’t believe a guy could spend twenty years maturing politically the way he has and not know what a death’s head means
if his attitude from the jump has been “I did this as a kid and have been ashamed of it since, it was a terrible mistake” I don’t think I’d mind. but he’s just not being honest here and that’s suspicious as hell.
The symbol in question:
He probably thought it’s a cool Darth Vader tattoo 🙄
Wait what makes it a Nazi tattoo? Are all skulls potentially Nazi tattoos? It just looks like a regular (somewhat cartoonish) skull and bones
Edit: Oh seems like part of a specific SS symbol
I mean, after the swastika, SS logo and iron cross, it’s like the fourth most famous Nazi symbol
There’s a pretty wide gap between spots three and four, bud. Even before considering that you forgot about the arm bands and the mustache.
Also skulls are the most widely used symbols for all sorts of things throughout history and modern pop culture
Yeah but that’s a very specific design, bud
That’s what I said lmao. And that it’s only part of the very specific design half the comment section’s never seen before. Some guy even tattooed it on himself without knowing it, buddy
I mean…I can kinda get why he didn’t know. That looks like one of those blobs therapists use to figure out what you see.
I don’t even see a skull and bones. I see a fish, with a railroad crossing sign on it’s belly.
Even side by side, I barely see the resemblance. I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be, but I could easily be convinced if you show me a fish with a railroad sign on it’s belly.
I can fully understand how he didn’t know. I don’t understand why he got a tattoo he had no strong attatchments to however. He should have at least known WHAT he was getting tattood in the first place.
In any event, nazi affiliation, no nazi affiliation, can we all agree that it’s a shit tattoo either way?
I too think the picture is uselessly bad, and that’s key to another part of the story in the comments. Basically an unnamed associate seemed to be in the same boat of not knowing what it was and the man himself described it by name.
Now he didn’t explicitly say it was a Nazi symbol, but he allegedly used the specific German word for it instead of saying it’s some skull and crossbones.
Per the Jewish Insider citing a anonymous source, so take that for what you will
It probably isn’t as blurry in a mirror as it is in a flip phone video from 2015.
I’m still not sure I’d recognize it, especially not without the backing shield. Sure, you can say that’s just on me, but there’s so many symbols and references that lead back to nazis that I can’t imagine I’ll know them all. I’d counter that by asking if you’d think anything deep about seeing a Medusa tattoo.
Also, people get meaningless tattoos all the time, especially once you get over your first one’s novelty. You liked it that day. No one is sentimental about their cartoon toaster. No one put meaning into every single element of their full sleeves. Right now there’s a trend of just getting 20 pieces of flash, not far from the generalized traditional designs from the 1950s
Seriously, you think nobody is sentimental about The Brave Little Toaster?
I’ve never seen it with eyes. Even if I did, it’d barely rank higher than a meme in long term sentimentality. May as well be a sinbad S dragon
I also wanted to buy an Iron Cross necklace, but my mother wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know what it meant… Cause I was like 10 at the time. How old was he to not know what a Totenkopf is?
I literally just learned what it is. I would have thought it was random pirate or metal shit
OK, then look at it this way. Would you have gotten a tattoo on your chest of something you didn’t know the meaning of?
I wouldn’t, but then again I’m not a drunk Marine.
Like the other user above, I’ve also never heard of the Totenkopf and I don’t recognize the emblem. Looks like any other skull and crossbones to me. I’m not saying it isn’t a harmful symbol, but I can understand how a lot of people would be totally ignorant to its history like I am.
I would have assumed this was just a skull and crossbones design, not a specific Nazi symbol. Maybe some 40k shit.
Right. And you can blame bad decisions on being drunk. It’s ridiculous but whatever. And then the next few decades when you … checks notes … don’t actually look up the tattoo and … checks notes … actively ignore people who told you it was Nazi shit … those years involved plenty of sober incidents.
Also, if you’re going into national politics, you have to know that people will look into your past. So you ask your supporters to do it first, to deal with the rough stuff before it’s trending around the globe. Every single politician in the world understands this basic point.
Would you look up something if you didn’t suspect it was anything more than a random skull and crossbones? Why do you think people told him it was a nazi thing? I dunno this actually seems like a totally feasible story to me, especially when you see how shitty the thing looks.
People are acting like this is a well known symbol but I didn’t know it nor has anyone in real life I’ve talked to about this
Yeah, I’m more inclined to believe that he was drunk, and a foreigner wasn’t a fan of American Marines in his country, and branded him with a well known nazi symbol on his chest just to fuck with him.
No, but I’ve known people that have
I was seriously looking at a tattoo, but dropped the idea after running it by a friend who was more aware of the problematic implications than I was at the time.
It’s not hard to make a mistake. And it might be hard to recall that, at least in America prior to 2016, we didn’t generally take (neo)Nazism and unironic fascism seriously.
Anyway, as someone else said, he shows growth.
the antisemitism group Anti-Defamation League
Looks like they accidentally described a zionist group accurately!
So deeply depressing when “anti-Semitism” is increasingly cover for “pro-fascism”.
Today I learned that a Nazi tattoo. Anyone else here know that before this story?
Yes, absolutely.
Never seen that British show either 🤷 look if he’s an active Nazi then fuck em. But I need a wee bit more evidence
As the clip says, it’s on the caps of their uniforms.
I don’t live in Maine or know much about the guy so I have no input on that, I’m just saying I know it. And tbf my perspective is somewhat skewed as I recognize a lot of symbols for the purposes of threat assessment.
Yea, idk it’s a new one to me. I’ll wait to see how that plays out. And now I have a new show to check out 😀
See the ® next to his name?
It’s a D this time.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, who strongly backed Platner earlier this month, said the revelations about Platner do not impact his endorsement.
“He went through a dark period,” Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. “He has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I’m confident that he’s going to run a great campaign and that he’s going to win.”
Vermont Sen. Peter Welch also told NOTUS on Tuesday that he is confident “Mainers will figure it out.”
Cynthia Phinney, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, said she had not seen reports about Platner’s tattoo and the controversy surrounding it. But she made clear she thought the negative news about Platner was a result of meddling from the national Democratic Party.
“I’m disappointed with the apparent engagement of the national party in our state primary the way this is coming out,” Phinney said.
Phinney said that she didn’t have proof that the national party was behind the emergence of a series of damaging news stories about his campaign but that she thought the “mudslinging” was unhelpful regardless of its source.
“I don’t think this is adding to the quality of what people are getting to think about in the campaign,” she said. “The important thing to me is to replace Suan Collins.”
When asked about the reports, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw his weight behind Mills’ campaign.
“We think that Janet Mills is the best candidate to retire Susan Collins. She’s a tested two-term governor and the people of Maine have an enormous amount of affection and respect for her,” he said, adding: “I’ll let the people of Maine decide.”
I live in Maine and EVERYONE hates Janet Mills. She’s been better than lepage, I guess, but not by a lot. Milquetoast at best. Voting for her would be once again holding my nose and voting for the D over the R
Color me shocked. A smear campaign by the DNC to fight progressives?
I’m sorry, but an actual Nazi can’t pretend to be progressive long enough to finish a sentence, let alone get an endorsement from Bernie Sanders.
He has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made
Rookie mistake. Coulda been president by now if only he… listens to earpiece I have been informed that this man is NOT a star, ergo they will not let him do it.
I would be gobsmacked if it turns out the DNC is not behind this smear campaign. They ratfuck primaries like nobody’s business, and in true Dem fashion, it’s so they can try to get a literal 80 year old into power instead. Fucking moron democrats never learn a damn thing.
edit: saw Platner address this on pod save. Don’t think he knew. I think he should just get the tat covered, make an apology statement, and move on.
This is exactly how the most popular candidate for the Democrats got switched for Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders was getting cut from coverage despite HUGE support and all of a sudden, Obama’s bumbling VP was being shown as the top candidate.
Without trying to go down a conspiracy hole, Sanders was a threat to corporate power, predatory banking, and dis-regulation. DNC wants to play as close to the line as they can to get your vote, throw you a few bones, and still take your money. This is why the left and the right in America is still far right of everywhere else.
As someone who has good friends that I respect that are all across the political spectrum, this is where I hope my friends that think trump will break certain things are right. So that the pendulum swing comes back so strongly that we can clearly see how broken things were and fix them in a way that benefits actual people, not just barely enough like the DNC likes to keep things.
Take the ACA for example. Obama had the best of intentions. But he took Chris Dodd’s plan as the basis. Chris Dodd’s wife, Jackie Clegg, sat on the boards for many health industry companies. The plan could have worked, but was stripped of the public option. Only with subsidies was the plan possible to offer healthcare to people at a sometimes reasonable price, often not. Now those subsidies are ending. The only good thing to come out of it, from what I can tell, is that insurance companies can’t deny you for pre-existing conditions. Up till now, It’s just enough to make us think that at least it’s not worse, but let’s be honest, healthcare in America sucks. There are excellent people working as nurses, doctors, EMTs, etc, but insurance, pharmaceutical companies, and private equity working to keep us just barely alive and too desperate to fight it. This is the type of thing Bernie Sanders fought against and why he disappeared from coverage, endorsement, and ballots.
This is part of what needs to break. DNC would bend it as far as it could get away with while trying to make us think it’s working, but trump will break it and call me idealist, but I hope the pushback instills leadership with someone like Sanders who cares enough to mend those bones in a way that serves the people.
Smear campaign? I don’t see anyone denying that he has a Nazi tattoo. This doesn’t seem like the same sort of thing as the baseless accusations of antisemitism against Mamdani or the “Bernie Bros” and “Obama Boys” nonsense.
He addresses the tattoo directly on pod save America and how he got it. It was something him and a bunch of other soldiers got together in the military 20 years ago. He also finds it funny that these smears accuse him of being a Nazi and a communist at the same time.
Ohhh ok he got the Nazi tattoo with other soldiers together in the military, so that makes it ok guys.
Remember John Fetterman? He seemed pretty progressive, right until he got elected.
The guy is a marine who served several tours in places we never should have been in the first place, with a Nazi tattoo on his chest. I think I’ll believe that over some bullshit faux leftist lip service he might pay in order to get elected.
Fetterman actually wasn’t progressive at all even before he was elected.
I dunno, if he’s a secret fascist he’s been playing the really long game.
Pretty thin sauce given the pic I’ve seen. And I don’t give a rat’s ass how he was as a young man.
Watch this and tell me you can’t cheer for him.
So even if he was more Nazi when he was younger, you don’t think he could have changed since then?
Hey, Janet Mills is only 77! She’s a spring chicken!
What an up and coming star! I can’t wait for the younger generation in their 70s to run this country instead do of the old geriatric corpses in their 80s
This man is too real. The DNC is going to bury him.
I’ve watched his longer campaign ad twice, and twice I wept a bit, wanted to fucking SCREAM. My god my fucking god, THIS is the winning message. In my 54-years I have never heard such… don’t have words, y’all watch the fucking video.
Pikachu face
