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'The Establishment Is Spooked': Poll Shows Platner With Big Lead Over Mills in Maine Democratic Primary
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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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.
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?
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
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 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.
If it “fucked him up”, why did he work for BLACKWATER after his discharge from the military?
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.
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.
They pay well and need people with soldiering skills.
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.
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
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?
In america, sure. In Croatia? I believe it
Yeah I understand your narrative, its just I was expecting your link to have evidence.
Goddamn astroturf campaigns here
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