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If you actually dig into it, like me, he was clueless that a skull and crossbones was a Nazi symbol. It was the first thing I looked up on him, then just stared trying to sort it out because it didn’t look like any Nazi symbology I’d ever seen.
Good odds this a big money rumor to keep people like this guy off ballots.
He’s essentially working class. Liberal gun owner. Calling for retirement of the old guard. Better to look up what the man has said re Schumer and such.
I've said it before, but if his reddit post history is any indication, if he's a Nazi plant he's playing the really long game. Not that he hasn't posted stupid shit, but the worst of it was posted long ago and it's fair to account for personal growth.
I don't think he is the best progressive candidate possible but he probably isn't a Nazi. Just kind of ignorant.
My best friend was military. Raised Mormon, though he spent a decent amount of time in boys homes (very crazy mom) and went into the military as quickly as he could. Very typical meathead character, doing basic toxic male shit. He was working for the military when I met him. And I met him because he was leaving his faith when he learned about atheism. Since then, he became a pacifist (I helped him through his conscientious objector status to get out of the military), got rid of his guns, became a staunch Democrat, recognized his suppressed bisexuality, and started working on his mental health. If you put the person I first met, next to the person he is today, he's only visually the same. Completely different person. It's not normal to have such extreme changes. Most of us don't have those polar changes in life. But some people do. Platner sounds a lot like my friend. He has been angry for a while but finally put on the They Live glasses and figured out who and what to be angry at. Could it all be a farce? Yeah. We could be being misled. Any politician can be someone else. Platner's story thus far is absolutely plausible. And it's been scrutinized heavily. He's not a George Santos. He IS however targeted by Israel and the oligarchs. So, I'm choosing to believe his story, one that I've seen before, over targeted talking points that are being used in paid ads by AIPAC.
It's not about being misled. The guy has very clearly not done the work. Sure. He looks like he's starting to do the work, but he's a massive fucking liability with the half apologies and the backtracking. He's not woke yet. Yes, everyone has a right to start where there are. No, we don't have to fucking vote them into positions of power over us.
What’s the alternative? There is only one alternative: Susan Collins. That’s the forced choice. Platner or Collins.
It will be one or the other.
Correct! It's almost like electoralism isn't solving any fucking problems and we should stop wasting time on this race - because every single choice is a losing choice - and instead focus our efforts on literally anything else that makes life better because giving Democrats our energy is just frog marching us towards more and more death, destruction, and devastation.
TIL being white = "very clearly not done the work"...
LOL, telling on yourself on this one. The fact that he has not responded well to situation around his tattoo means he hasn't done the work.
Not responded well? As far as I'm aware, he explained that he didn't know what it was when he got it (which is very believable, as I didn't know what it was until I read about him), and he had it removed. What else do you expect?
"Haven't done the work" is such a vague term that gets overapplied to anyone you want to dismiss as backwards and ignorant, completely ignoring the work that they have done. If you can point to something ignorant someone said or did twelve years ago, then you'll say they "haven't done the work," for the rest of their lives. You apparently don't believe people can learn and grow, which is basically essentialism.
Obviously, if someone points out the work that they've done, you'll just dismiss it as performative and virtue signalling and say they don't get points just for meeting the bare minimum. So there's no way to actually "do the work" such that you would even acknowledge it.
That's pretty short-sighted, because if you give people no way forward then they're going to stop trying to please you, and they may even move backwards. Which makes it all the more impressive that he is moving forward, to be honest.
This is mostly just cope. Platner needs to actually talk about the tattoo, what he learned, how he learned it, how it applies to the context of US politics and the military, why people might be upset about it, what he's doing over and above what a normal person needs to do because the fact that he had a fucking tottenkopf permanently drawn on his body requires some more soul searching and actual consciousness than the kid who thought rap music was garbage when they were 15.
What's NOT doing the work is retreating to innocence. "I didn't know. How could I know? I removed it, what more could I possibly do? Actually people who are upset just don't understand."
That's not the work. That's literally text book crypto white supremacist defense mechanisms. It's the same playbook that allows Bostonians to believe they aren't racist when pretty much any POC who interacts with the city will tell you it's one of the top racist places in the country.
Everything is meaningless if your entire theory of action is vote blue no matter, so it's not surprising you think that saying Platner hasn't done the work is meaningless.
But don't worry. In a few more days you'll need to explain why he was sexting with women on TikTok and his wife found out and she chose to share it with the campaign. And of course, he didn't know it was wrong at the time. He was just caught up in the moment. He deleted the messages now so everything is fine. What more could I ask from him?
You don't need to be a historian to guess that a skull and crossbones isn't exactly a peace symbol.
Military.. His unit got that tattoo. Not my thing, but, whatever. The guy is an oyster farmer now. Cusses like a sailor too.
Idc. But then I also think the liberal side of things needs to lay off the gun thing.
I’d be curious to see an old source on that tattoo.
Not knowing what it is is an obvious lie, sorry. There's no way the white male millennial soldier that grew up with the History Channel didn't know what it was. His friends and family have said he knew what it was. He had Reddit posts defending police getting SS bolts and discussing the thematic differences between Totenkopf and Punisher tattoos.
And, honestly, if he genuinely didn't know what it was, that level of historical ignorance should also be disqualifying.
Then what was it? I’m no deep dive history buff on nazis but I’ve had the college level courses, in addition to the extra bits on Speer and the symbology. I did not recognize it. Link old, pre headline sources.
You've studied Nazism at a collegiate level but are asking for a source on what a totenkopf is...?
So if the argument is that he is, still, currently a Nazi, just running on progressive ideology to pull one over on all of us dumb rubes, why bother hiding it? Why be a cryptofascist when obvious-as-fuck fascists are running on fascist platforms and getting elected because they're fascists? He has said literally nothing even in his online posts as a private citizen anywhere near as far-reich or as blatant as the current admin says in plain sight on Twitter.
Idk and I'm gen x,different state, but seriously did i fuckin idiots really elect another fetterman? Quit bein gullible, and curb stop a Republican
You know they fucking did, man, and they are going to witch hunt US for calling their dumb asses out.
He also didn't know what sexting was, eh? Just said some words that his buddies thought sounded cool and next thing you know his wife is sharing them to expose what he's actually like?