US Senate candidate Graham Platner reassures transgender Mainer he will fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Despite past controversies, he emphasizes growth and empathy. #GrahamPlatner
The tattoo dates to roughly 2009, IIRC. The Daily Wire and a few other far-right shitrags have published hysterical pieces about him–via his Reddit account–talking about training the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Club in firearms use and safety in 2020. Or, as they said, “antifa”. And the SRA IS notably anti-fascist in their ideology (I’m sure that some percentage of them are tankies, but the org as a whole doesn’t seem to be authoritarian), and very pro-LGBTQ+. The turned up photos of one of the events that these publications are saying he’s in. (I can’t tell, TBH; the photos aren’t that good. He could be, but I can’t say for certain.)
So the problem you run headlong into here is, if he secretly has/had Nazi beliefs at one time, sufficient to get a tattoo signifying such, why would be be training SRA members?
In addition to that, everything he was posting on Reddit appears to say he’s not a Nazi. Some of the stuff is questionable (slurs, for instance, although those are probably still commonly used in the military), but most people that are fascists don’t hide that shit when they’re posting “anonymously”. And the account was deleted in 2021, four years before he declared for a Senate run. If he was planning a con, that’s a looooooooong time to be building an anti-fascist online persona before it gets any kind of payoff.
Also, if you’re planning such a long con to pretend to be antifascist, surely covering up your Nazi tattoo would be first thing on the list. The fact that he didn’t, despite his history of opposing fascism, tells me that he honestly didn’t know.
TBH, I’m not sure I would have recognized that as a Nazi symbol prior to a group of people I knew arguing about Death In June. Some were arguing that the band was fine, some were arguing that the band was pro-fash. The second group was using the band’s iconography–including a totenkopf–as part of their evidence. The first group was claiming that it was satirical. (FWIW, Death In June had a long history of collaboration with Boyd Rice, who is an out-and-proud fascist, which is pretty strong evidence all on its own.) That was around 2010 or so.
If I hadn’t been part of that, I can’t say when it would have broken my threshold of consciousness.
I don’t care when the tattoo is from, even he admits it’s Nazi symbology he just says he didn’t know it at the time. The rest of that is irrelevant to being suspicious of a dude with a Nazi tattoo in the same way I would be suspicious of a dude with a tattoo involving the numbers 14 and 88. Could it be innocent? Sure dude, is it “performative outrage” to question the dude because of it? Absolutely not, it would be fucking irresponsible not to.
People do contradictory shit all the time especially if it helps their end goal whatever that may be in the long run. I don’t really know one way or the other but I know I’d prefer a candidate with similar professed beliefs without a next tattoo.
What you feel to see here is that I didn’t say anything about his stances or beliefs. What you’re left with is it reasonable to be wary of dudes with Nazi tattoos? Id say yeah, and I’d question anyone that didn’t say the same.
You know that he covered up the tattoo within a day of revealing it, right? And that he was the one that revealed it first? The ‘scoop’ from large news outlets came after he spoke about it–and released videos and photos–on Pod Save America.
So he’s not a dude with a Nazi tattoo. He’s a dude that had a tattoo that he may or may not have known was a Nazi tattoo at some time in the past.
And after like 13 years of having it, seems late to me.
No he’s a dude with a covered Nazi tattoo he had for over a decade with knowledge it was a Nazi tattoo. No, he knew he admitted that much already, stop making argument even he won’t make.
The tattoo dates to roughly 2009, IIRC. The Daily Wire and a few other far-right shitrags have published hysterical pieces about him–via his Reddit account–talking about training the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Club in firearms use and safety in 2020. Or, as they said, “antifa”. And the SRA IS notably anti-fascist in their ideology (I’m sure that some percentage of them are tankies, but the org as a whole doesn’t seem to be authoritarian), and very pro-LGBTQ+. The turned up photos of one of the events that these publications are saying he’s in. (I can’t tell, TBH; the photos aren’t that good. He could be, but I can’t say for certain.)
So the problem you run headlong into here is, if he secretly has/had Nazi beliefs at one time, sufficient to get a tattoo signifying such, why would be be training SRA members?
In addition to that, everything he was posting on Reddit appears to say he’s not a Nazi. Some of the stuff is questionable (slurs, for instance, although those are probably still commonly used in the military), but most people that are fascists don’t hide that shit when they’re posting “anonymously”. And the account was deleted in 2021, four years before he declared for a Senate run. If he was planning a con, that’s a looooooooong time to be building an anti-fascist online persona before it gets any kind of payoff.
Also, if you’re planning such a long con to pretend to be antifascist, surely covering up your Nazi tattoo would be first thing on the list. The fact that he didn’t, despite his history of opposing fascism, tells me that he honestly didn’t know.
TBH, I’m not sure I would have recognized that as a Nazi symbol prior to a group of people I knew arguing about Death In June. Some were arguing that the band was fine, some were arguing that the band was pro-fash. The second group was using the band’s iconography–including a totenkopf–as part of their evidence. The first group was claiming that it was satirical. (FWIW, Death In June had a long history of collaboration with Boyd Rice, who is an out-and-proud fascist, which is pretty strong evidence all on its own.) That was around 2010 or so.
If I hadn’t been part of that, I can’t say when it would have broken my threshold of consciousness.
I don’t care when the tattoo is from, even he admits it’s Nazi symbology he just says he didn’t know it at the time. The rest of that is irrelevant to being suspicious of a dude with a Nazi tattoo in the same way I would be suspicious of a dude with a tattoo involving the numbers 14 and 88. Could it be innocent? Sure dude, is it “performative outrage” to question the dude because of it? Absolutely not, it would be fucking irresponsible not to.
People do contradictory shit all the time especially if it helps their end goal whatever that may be in the long run. I don’t really know one way or the other but I know I’d prefer a candidate with similar professed beliefs without a next tattoo.
What you feel to see here is that I didn’t say anything about his stances or beliefs. What you’re left with is it reasonable to be wary of dudes with Nazi tattoos? Id say yeah, and I’d question anyone that didn’t say the same.
You know that he covered up the tattoo within a day of revealing it, right? And that he was the one that revealed it first? The ‘scoop’ from large news outlets came after he spoke about it–and released videos and photos–on Pod Save America.
So he’s not a dude with a Nazi tattoo. He’s a dude that had a tattoo that he may or may not have known was a Nazi tattoo at some time in the past.
And after like 13 years of having it, seems late to me.
No he’s a dude with a covered Nazi tattoo he had for over a decade with knowledge it was a Nazi tattoo. No, he knew he admitted that much already, stop making argument even he won’t make.