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What Graham Platner Said When a Trans Mainer Asked: 'Will You Stand Up for Me?'
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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politics
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it was one though, hard to say that someone has grown if they're feigning ignorance about the entire thing.
If you've ever been in or known anyone in the service, you would know that it's massively overblown and doesn't "mean" anything. There are thousands of different varieties of skull and crossbone out there, you would have to be really deep in the nazi sauce to use that particular design as a signal.
This is pretty much a "hasan's dog" thing, it's being overblown because of the desperate need by media personalities, including youtube streamers, to harvest money from reaction content, driving up everyone's black-and-white thinking.
We have actual nazis in office and running for office, people who don't even hide it. We have to stay focused on what the actual dangers are.
Honestly his military service is even more disqualifying as far as I'm concerned, but I guess spending years gunning down brown foreigners appeals to the median democrat.
It's a year out, if it's that serious surely someone without all this baggage could run for office.
Being against military service is a far more honest criticism, but also utterly unrealistic. We just don't live in that world.
Except he didn't just do military service, he also worked for Blackwater.
From his Wikipedia page:
He worked as security to the US ambassador for 6 months. And quit because he disliked the military industrial complex that he was witnessing from the inside.
As a former military person he could have lived the good life cashing giant checks from Blackwater until he reached retirement. Instead he quit to take on the not so cushy life of being an oyster farmer. And now he is diving head first into the wood chipper that is a political campaign in the United States against a well established GOP incumbent.
To be dismissive of such a person is reductive and unnecessarily demeaning. And leads me to wonder if you are being disingenuous in hopes of helping one of the, quite frankly utterly despicable, other candidates.
Sweet Lord, I saw other comments about a stint and Blackwater but this is the first that actual described it. A 6-month job as an ambassador's security doesn't give a lot of free time for atrocities even if it were in Blackwater's contracts. His service record would likely be more damning than that.
sadly we're in the world where the bipartisan consensus is for endless warmongering and turning a blind eye to nazis
That's a pretty 1-dimensional perspective. If you understand both the shitty reality we live in AND that nothing is black-and-white, you will be a lot more effective at actually pushing the needle towards progress, like so many actual great activists have done which has gotten us to a world where your chances of being murdered and raped and eaten by bandits has fallen dramatically low.
if it means supporting someone like this guy I'd rather be rotating on a spit tyvm
I understand that 100. People kept quiet about Fetterman and his worrying behavior before he was elected, then after his stroke when it was brought up repeatedly, people kept blaming the stroke.
Yes, people change and maybe Fetterman did and the stroke caused regression; and maybe he didn't and it didn't.
That's just utterly insane hyperbole that most likely has the opposite effect as you might think. I hope you grow more.
Diva is kind of a dipshit. Don't waste your time.
Some people and animals learn they can get attention with negative behavior as much as positive, and just get stuck there forever.
negative behavior like ... not wanting to be on the same side as a former state department mercenary with a Nazi tattoo.
k
I love how you're scrolling around to see if people are talking about you.
There are some really great hobbies out there that will give you a sense of accomplishment without having to feel connected to the toxicity of politics, I highly recommend taking a break.
I have plenty of hobbies on top of my organizing work; thanks for the unsolicited advice tho
You have an incredibly childish view of the world.
He has already addressed this and got the tattoo covered up. Case closed.
his explanation left a lot to be desired, though it's not surprising that Nazi tattoos fly under the radar as a state department mercenary.
If you're posturing like a politically-aware leftist or calling yourself a communist, to claim ignorance of something like that just makes it sound like you're lying because you got caught.
All this "once an X always an X" rhetoric does is prevent anyone who wants to pull away from trump from doing so.
It's already difficult enough for people to change, basically telling anyone who wants to change "yeah you can alienate yourself from my enemies but you'll always be on my shit list" is absolutely not going to win them over and just reinforces that X identity is all they have.
Unless you like losing elections you really need to consider how winning people over is crucially important to any movement.
I'm fine with people changing and learning from their past behavior. If he was just another person on the street I wouldn't have any issue.
However I'm troubled by having someone who's already demonstrated that lack of judgement and awareness pursuing a leadership position. I just can't trust the guy on his words alone at this point. It's a year out from the election, surely there's other people who can run.
"I'm troubled by having someone who's already demonstrated that lack of judgement and awareness"
It would be one thing if he did something criminal or malicious but having had shitty beliefs and then changing them just shows growth.
Judging someone who's an ostensible ally and who is exactly the kind of change we want to see for having needed the change in the first place is circular logic and ultimately self-alienating.
You say you're fine with people changing but your logic doesn't allow for anyone who's changed their views to be a representative.
At this point it's not even about ideology anymore but just straight up identity politics.
You're basically treating him like he's an ideological felon where he's allowed to continue existing but can't participate in politics.
Sorry but I severely don't buy this original sin level of being forever unworthy just for having had different political beliefs in the past.
We need to normalize growing up instead of relentlessly punishing people for having been misled naive at some point in their life.
You say there's better people to run but I'd argue that a convert is absolutely the best person to run because it opens the door for more converts.
He was a part of the US war machine for decades, you understand how that's doing harm to people in a concrete sense? I get that he finally quit, but I consider that history worse than being a criminal, especially under our current judicial system.
They can be reformed, but I'd rather not have them in a leadership position.
Many people enter the military because of poor economic prospects, being crushed by capitalism is literally their best recruiting tool.
Without knowing why he joined, holding his service history against him is effectively victim blaming.
Not to mention that even if he was ideologically motivated he's now turned against something he literally fought for, showing massive positive growth.
So either way his service history isn't a valid refute for the points I've previously brought up about change/growth.
Sorry but this all seems like justification for indulging in identity politics.
not wanting a nazi tattoo guy in leadership = identity politics; got it
Now I know you're not an ideologically serious person. You refused to engage with anything I said and instead doubled down on missing every single point I brought up.
Anything you say from here out is obviously informed solely by identity and not ideology.
If actual ideology was the basis of your reasoning you would have brought up a single ideological point but you didn't and instead kept going back to identity.
If you can name one critique that isn't just about his previous identity and your inability to let people grow and I'll recant about you not being serious but I severely doubt you can.
As an organization the US military is evil and their recruitment strategies prey on poor people who want an out that doesn't typically exist.
I have sympathy for them, but I also don't think it applies to former blackwater mercs.
People should be judged based on where they are now, their actions in the present, and their self-criticism of their past actions.
There's all sorts of reasons I could point to why Graham Platner is unfit to be a leader in any leftist movement but the most glaring one is that as far as I can tell from his statements he thinks the US wasn't engaged in anything wrong overseas.
As for not being malicious or not being a criminal, here's one of his posts where he talks about disobeying direct orders in order to commit even more warcrimes than he would otherwise be allowed to:
spoiler
have fun electing Fetterman 2.0, I'm sure in another 4 years there's going to be another social fascist with an even bigger bodycount that you guys will be pushing.
His grandfather is a famous architect and his Dad a successful lawyer.
His explanation that he was drunk with buddies on deployment in Croatia is perhaps the most believable circumstance in which someone would make that mistake. Yes, he had the tattoo for several years. I don't recall how long he said he was aware of it being the Nazi symbol, but yes, in my opinion he should have gotten it removed or covered sooner once he did know. I certainly never would have known that the skull was a Nazi symbol without being explicitly told.
That said, no, I don't think it sounds like he's lying. He isn't posturing either, and there's plenty of evidence to back that up.
If you're not capable of accepting that he made a mistake and addressed it appropriately, then I don't see how you could ever be satisfied. If we want real people to run for office and not just establishment approved candidates, you need to open to the idea that people make mistakes, they change, and they may not have the squeaky-clean past you idealize.
I think you have unrealistic expectations, not just of people running for office, but for people in general. Your purity test is not only foolish, but will cause you to be deeply unsatisfied and let down by so much in the world.
I can accept that for a lot of democrats this is something they're entirely willing to overlook. It's not a surprise because they have already been fine operating as co-conspirators in decades of US warmongering.
I agree, I might be less let down by the world if I was more comfortable around people with nazi tattoos. I think I will continue to be disappointed though.
Eh, there definitely is a resemblance but the details aren't quite the same: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:cexoqsdnukfflq6jhculm23i/bafkreiamqpmivablffphia4osiivjsds6xoscqi4adfdgopyh4dbwm3o5u@jpeg
Details? You're looking at a different picture than I am.
I just see a black blob.
Also, thanks for posting that. It's the first time I've actually seen a picture of the tattoo and as someone who hasn't engrossed themselves in white supremacist culture, wouldn't immediately place that as being a Nazi symbol.
looks the same to me