Reading through Platner’s many hundreds of anonymous comments, it’s hard to paint him as a secret white supremacist or far-right extremist of any kind. In fact, his posts more or less align with the persona he has presented to voters in the two months since he launched his campaign: a rough-around-the-edges military veteran and oyster farmer with a penchant for crude language and a passion for firearms and sustainable living who holds a variety of standard progressive views alongside some heterodox ones.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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I smelled a hatchet job.
Is it from the republicans or liberal dems?
Maga. Israel. The usual. Possibly the Dem party. They really don't like these new unbought Dems coming in and making them look bad.
Cuomo is literally a sex abuser and establishment democrats can’t get enough of him.
Jeffries should be ashamed it took him this long to endorse Mamdami. But good to know he’s a traitor to his supporters.
Cuomo is literally a sex abuser and establishment democrats can’t get enough of him.
It's not that they like Cuomo. It's that they hate Mamdani because he represents an actual threat to the wealth of their friends. They just have to cling to Cuomo because he's the only way they can fight Mamdani; stumping for the Republican instead will get them in trouble and give the game away.
I don’t care if it sounds incredibly naive, but getting money out of politics would make life better for everyone who deserves it.
People would become politicians because they genuinely have passion to fix things for the people.
Australia just banned corporate pac money. We should too.
Feels like Biden in the 2020 primaries. The centrists didn't love him, he was an elderly gaffe machine (with scandals way worse than anything with Platner), but after trying and failing to make literally my every other moderate take off and the likely alternative was Bernie, they took what was available.
They'd love someone who wasn't scandal plagued, but their other options all suck too, so I guess it's all-in on the corrupt sex pest.
Hey, that reminds me: Once we survive the current crisis and move the Democrats somewhere in the vicinity of a left-wing party or replace them, let's primary the fuck out of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I'm sort of irritated that she still has a job.
It's really wild how some people still keep existing in the party. Like why the fuck does Rahm Emmanuel's name keep coming up in serious political conversation? And Henry Cuellar is still a sitting congressman with apparently most of the House leadership ready to answer his calls. Popular imagination generally paints party leadership as a bunch of cut throat sociopaths, but it really feels like if you've made the right friends you can just never go away.
I mean, they are very bad people. Like almost all of them.
A friend of a friend of mine worked in government (for a Democrat as it turns out), and she said that they're way worse than you think. Just on a personal level these horrifying caricatures of what a human should be, makes you want to take a shower after interacting with them type of thing. I don't think it's universally that way; I do think there are some people in Washington who are trying to do the right thing, but I cannot imagine that you can exist in an environment that corrupt and not have it do some level of damage to you (and drive away the people who are not cool with that level of evil). And the people who are comfortable successful creatures within that environment I think are pretty universally bad.
There is also this upsetting factor that I think a lot of the American voting populace are fine with that. Like I feel like if you tried to primary DWS by painting her as the objective monster that she is and what she did to the country, people would be fine with it and you'd go down in flames. Maybe things are changing now as the young progressives furious about their situation are getting involved in politics, but I think all of the old guard is unapologetically horrible and that's not likely to change for as long as they are the old guard.
Yeah a very strong sign of how corrupt the Dems in office are.
Kinda like they all take money from the same people...
I mean, it's from "the bad people." There are plenty of "the bad people" in both the Republican and Democratic party, and also a lot of them outside of the US trying to influence the US election at this point. They are, broadly speaking, all in allegiance with each other. They periodically switch parties (from Dem -> Repub) when things get too unbearable on one side of the aisle, they periodically impersonate progressives to get elected (Sinema). Kicking them out of Washington is one of the most critical reforms that must be undertaken even if we manage to survive the present crisis. Unfortunately, it's not that easy.
To me, the fact that they are swinging so hard against Platner is the strongest indication I have seen so far that he is the real deal.
I think for many people getting a tattoo is a huge deal and we would never allow our skin to be marked without out a lot of forethought.
But I think there is a good chunk of the population that doesn’t think about it and don’t see it as a big deal. I think a lot of these people are concentrated in the military, the lack of forethought is increased when you are in a job that may well see you killed soon.
I’d like to see him reaching out to new and old military members to educate them on the meaning he apparently didn’t know about and pushing them to remove it.
Someone with some art skills should come up with a suitably cool modification tattoo that neutralises the nazi aspect and but still lets these guys support and identify with battle mates.
It’s not their fault the nazis happens co opt heaps of cool symbols and I don’t blame some 22 year old jar head for not knowing history (they should but the US education system has a lot to answer for).
If you give people an easy way out that lets them save face you’ll only be left with the actual racists.
I mean my contention isn't that he didn't know what it was, it's that you gotta be kidding me that he didn't learn what it was in the 20 years since. I don't give a shit about his reddit history; if anything its just kinda affable to me. Hell, I'd be willing to even take the tattoo at "I learned what it was at a really dark time in my life, and I just haven't confronted the tattoo itself, even if I conquered the ideologies that led to both its creation and its application to my body." Like obviously military service is its own alt-right pipeline. But like, bro, you got the super non-pirate skull and crossbones across your tit, bro, what are you doing?
Like I'm not even saying don't vote for him, deadass I'd still take his dumb ass over some Zionist shill 8 days a week. But, can nobody just call a spade a spade?
To be fair, just look at all the people who have Chinese words written on them that say something that they weren't trying to say. How many of those people have had those tattoos for many years without ever learning that they were incorrect or fixing them?
I wouldn't go this route personally, but I know enough about tattoos to say with a high degree of confidence that many people just pick something out of the books on the day of the walk-in because they think it looks cool. I could totally believe this guy and his marine buddies said "that's a cool skull, let's get that".
It's like, how many people have Punisher stickers or t-shirts but have never read a comic book in their lives? Probably most of them...
If I had Chinese symbols saying I was a nazi tattooed on me, I'd be at the nearest open parlor to get it covered up the same day I learned about it.
If he really did somehow just learn about it during the campaign, it should be gone by now.
Edit: which apparently it is, so good on him for that.
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Even if you know history, this is a fairly obscure symbol. I would bet there's a lot of people who know a lot about WWII and still wouldn't recognize it. For one, I don't think I would. I may have an "I've seen this symbol before..." moment, but I don't think I'd place it correctly on the spot.
Everybody is talking about Platner and that is fine, but i wanted to recognize the Jacobin for publishing this.
Here is a socialist magazine defending a man with a sketchy tattoo on the basis of the bulk of his posts. Jacobin (and Marcetic, the author) are cutting against cancel culture accusations and upholding the truth-finding principle of good journalism. Bravo.
Just as a context for people like myself that want to get their own look onto the tattoo situation. I cant find any less blurry pictures, but the shape matches quite well. He already got it covered up now, so no way to check.
This is an Nazi SS Totenkopf badge:
This is the tattoo:
The resemblance could be coincidence, maybe the artist who drew the flash knew what it was, but if you walk into a tattoo shop and want a skull and cross bones you could pick this off the wall.
I didn't know about the totenkopf until this news broke. If I'd seen that before I'd have thought it was just another death's head or pirate's Jolly Roger.
*A socialist work place and hating cops might align with a pirate's ideals.
I also didn't know about the Nazi connection, it looks like something a biker would have, which should have been a red flag to the imagery I guess, but it looks like a kind of standard skull to me otherwise.
I have a raised eyebrow on Platner. He seems genuine. A couple of odd details admittedly. But unless he's some kind of psyop candidate, he seems fine enough. I do wish his cover up for a Nazi symbol was much further away from the accusation than Celtic symbols.
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People latching onto this like it's some huge dealbreaker or a story about someone traitorous to progressive politics, you are probably the same people worked up about Hasan's dog. You guys NEED to take up reading actual novels with stories. Divert your emotional investment to actual stories you are allowed to get caught up in. It feels good, I recommend it highly.
You are all as bad as the right. I fucking swear, if this story bothers you, you are not well and you need to either touch grass or touch books. Just let this bullshit go. We have such bigger problems.
The right is going to elect actual nazis with nazi histories and nazi ideology to go with whatever symbols they have hidden away, and they're going to ignore every candidate on their side who has pictures surfacing of them wearing drag or having progressive takes in the past. They don't care. They want to win. Do you want to win?
I am quite convinced the old meme that the left hates victory and wants to lose is real. It's the exact same phenomenon as how conservative MAGAts want "daddy to choke them" but the left wants to be choked by institutions and politics broadly. I've never seen a political movement so intent on losing.
I hope you all get the perfect candidate so you can talk about how great he is while you're getting loading into train cars.
People latching onto this like it’s some huge dealbreaker or a story about someone traitorous to progressive politics, you are probably the same people worked up about Hasan’s dog.
What? These two things are not at all the same.
Platner seeks a position of power and the mere existence of a nazi tattoo shows questionable judgement at best and nazi sympathies at worst.
Its a pretty tame position to take in not wanting a politician with ANY connection to nazis
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that seems unlikely, considering i'd never heard of the man before this
He's the one with the big Nazi tattoo
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