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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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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.