PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — His U.S. Senate campaign under fire, Maine Democrat Graham Platner said Wednesday that a tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.
The first-time political candidate said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was in his 20s and in the Marine Corps. It happened during a night of drinking while he was on leave in Croatia, he said, adding he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazi police.
I’m a Mainer and I worry that this guy is going to be the new Sinema. Say all the right things and then swing hard right after the election. I grew up in Piscataquis county and knew plenty of guys like him who seem ok until you start digging and find out they believe in some awful stuff.
Someone having Nazi tattoos isn’t someone I want as a senator even if those tattoos were accidentally acquired.
Also people from away can have an opinion because the senate is country wide. Having a disingenuous person in the senate affects everyone (cough Fetterman cough).
The difference with Fetterman is that his background was as a rich nepo-baby who got his start in politics getting elected mayor and having major government functions flow through his family’s charity.
My understanding of why fetterman got such a good rap, was because of his social media strategy being run by an especially talented progressive campaign staffer who (I wish I had the citation sorry) I believe has since denounced him as an elected official
For Platner there really is nothing that smells insincere about him to me. Definitely questionable judgment, but scheduling a tattoo coverup basically the instant it became a campaign issue is a plus in my book. But I’m not from Maine so I’m not going to push too hard for any candidate
Well, you can now read his full reddit comment history if you wanna know what he’s about.
What if it DOES matter if they did it deliberately or accidentally, and it DOES matter how they respond when confronted about it? What if they’re humans who make mistakes, and are able to own them like an adult?
Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good, that’s the left wing cat herding part that earned us this fascist takeover in the first place. If you have someone better to vote for, by all means. But you can always convince yourself that the progressive candidate is secretly a right wing extremist. Always. That’s right there with QAnon rational.
You know lots of people from Piscataquis county who call themselves communists and are really vocal about medicare for all?
I know lots of people who seem nice and genuine and wanting to help people until you start asking them questions about their beliefs. And I’m not talking specifically Piscataquis. People in the county are like that too. And downeast too. That’s why I’m extremely wary of someone who has had nazi tattoos on their body.
Are you saying there are people who might misrepresent their political beliefs and background, and be disingenuous for some kind of ulterior political motive? And we need to be wary of them and ask probing questions and think critically about what they’re saying and what reasons they might have?
Personally, as a veteran of this comments thread, I actually think you might be onto something.
Backpedal harder
I’m not sure how my comment can be taken as a backpedal but whatever.
What I find funny is how much you downvote. I mean wow. Maybe if you dislike everything you should take a break from the internet for a bit.
https://lemvotes.org/user/joebigelow@lemmy.ca
Another profile creep. That’s weird
It’s an open format software. There are no secrets and the downvote trolls like you are annoying. Like flies buzzing around every thread stirring up shit.
It’s called motte and bailey. And yes, they do it constantly.
at least now you got a year to figure out of hes going to do the opposite he says. but the alternative it Chuck shcumers endorsed candidate.
So you would rather risk Janet Mills doing exactly nothing positive than risk Graham turning right? Have you listened to what he has to say vs what Sinnema had? It’s definitely different. It’s sad to me that people are so desperate to paint him with his past. How many of us haven’t made pretty awful choices? If we want an Everyman progressive we’re going to have to accept some skeletons imo. If Mills wins the primary LePage is going to sweep the general.
When your past involves Nazi symbolism it isn’t a little mistake. When the skeletons in your closet are a totenkopf i think we can safely discard that person as a serious candidate.
Fake progressives aren’t any better than corporate progressives. In fact they’re worse because you don’t actually know what they believe. At least with corporate shills you know that they’ll work to fill theirs and their benefactors pockets.
Does anything other than the style of the skull and crossbones of his ex-tattoo suggest that he is in any way a Nazi or fascist?
You mean other than the fact he was a guy interested in military symbology and kept a known nazi symbol on his body for 17 years?
Personally i learned about the totenkopf when i was in basic training (in 2001, he enlisted in ‘03 so same time frame) when they showed us tattoos that you can’t have in the military. He doesn’t really have any excuse.
Interesting, so how did the military not reprimand him for it? Do you think his ignorance is unlikely then, and that he actually made an effort to conceal it?
Fascinating. So presumably, he wasn’t permitted to have this tattoo that you can’t have in the military because it’s a Nazi symbol? He got it in 2007, and then wasn’t permitted to have it in the military when he reenlisted in 2010?
Tell me more about your personal experience with this particular topic, which enables you to speak with authority on it. What were some of the other symbols they showed you? It’s lucky that we have some military people and some people from Maine showing up here to speak from a place of authority about why Graham Platner is officially bad and we can’t vote for him.
The hill you’ve chosen to die on today is the fact that you don’t think it’s possible for US military personnel to get away with having Nazi or Ultra right wing nationalists tattoos? That’s the hill you’ve chosen? That thing that we’ve seen dozens and dozens of times before? Your pal the Secretary of Defense has them from when he was in the military. But that’s the thing you can’t buy into? Okay.
I didn’t say that. Mostly, I am saying that this guy is very very clearly not a Nazi, and so the broad-spectrum freakout about this particular tattoo is an establishment funded psyop which people on Lemmy should not be dutifully freaking out about when prompted to by the media.
What I said about the military personnel side was just that the specific details of how that one other user is claiming it works in the military are definitely false.
Oh he’s very clearly not a Nazi is he? The guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest? The guy who’s now very clearly lying about said tattoo? An ex marine? Sure very clear. What you mean to say is his current political campaign rhetoric doesn’t appear to be openly Nazi based. Well thank God we would never fall for campaign rhetoric that goes against all previous records of a person cough Fetterman cough. Maybe the psyop you should be concerned about is another Democrat getting into the Senate and then immediately voting against what Democrat voters actually want.
Also I’m confused by your last paragraph there. If you’re not saying that these kind of tattoos never get by the military sometimes then how is it definitely false what the other guys claiming? So which is it do they sometimes get through like he claims or they never get through like you were suggesting and now have suggested once again they are with that sentence? Can’t be both.
When did I say I was an authority or that you couldn’t vote for him?
Yes people with nazi adjacent tattos exist in the army. The people who do the examinations can be nazi adjacent too and then those type of people fall through the cracks. Also you aren’t really inspected on tattoos after your initial examination (at least when I was in the service). I mean, Hegseth has an iron cross and he’s been in the military for a while too.
If you’re trying to imply I’m not from Maine or didn’t spend time in the military then you’re mistaken. Not everyone online is a bot or shill.
PTB always has the worst take , and is probably whataboutism type of account.
Yes, that sure is how it works in the army. Everyone who’s tasked with some responsibility just kind of lets things slide based on their personal feelings or allegiances, and no one notices later “hey this guy has a Nazi tattoo even though Frank was supposed to inspect him” or asks “so what the fuck is up with THAT” or follows up on it.
Yes, you’re definitely not inspected yearly for tattoos on any particular system. They’re generally pretty lax about that stuff, as is well known, it’s just kind of a free-for-all.
My apologies Corporal
In the time frame we are talking about (early 2000s) he wouldn’t have been inspected yearly. I had nipple rings for fucks sake. You think someone would have said something about them if I was inspected yearly? Absolutely. But I wasn’t inspected except for the initial exam.
You sound like someone who is mad that they don’t know anything so they spout sarcastic comments to try and feel good about themselves.
Be better.
Do you think Janet Mills stands a chance in the general against LePage?
That’s not the issue and I’m not sure why you think it is. She was elected state wide twice (2022 by quite a large margin in fact) so she has just as much of a chance as LePage.
You know if you were trying to convince us of how benign the symbol is maybe you shouldn’t be trying to whitewash the name of it? Why don’t you just say Totenkopf? That’s what it’s called. That’s what he’s called it.
Maybe because most people have never even heard of a Totenkopf until now and wouldn’t know what one looks like. The dailykos story about it called it the 2nd or 3rd most recognizable symbol of Nazis, but I’ve never seen the symbol before and had never heard that term before today. Is it really that well known?
It is not. It does appear on the list of a lot of symbols illegal in Germany today because of their association with Naziism or extremism, but it’s obviously not the third most recognizable on that list (as well as having an obvious overlap with a general “yeah that’s badass I want skull and crossbones” meaning, which seems obviously more plausible as the reason why this person who very very obviously is not a Nazi wanted to get this particular tattoo).
The fact that people are pretending so hard that this is a big deal and trying to force the connection between the tattoo and this person being a Nazi when there is literally no other reason known in the world for thinking he is a Nazi and quite a few to think he is not, tells you much more about them than it does about Graham Platner.