He DOESNT think Trans people should be EXTERMINATED? How CONTROVERSIAL!
-The Media!
The reason he’s controversial is his Nazi tattoos
If I understand correctly, it was just the one tattoo that he got while in the Marines without knowing what it meant, and has had it covered since learning.
Calrification, this comment is for general readers, not targetted to the person I am replying to. It is meant for additional context and vocalizing my opinion of Graham Platner.
There was also him being on a podcast interview hosted by a questionable channel. But my thinking is Platner is not a career politician, and is just kinda ignorant politically speaking. People (particularly media and establishment Dems) keep trying to paint him as a nazi. Which yeah, if you only looked at the tattoo and podcast I feel that would be a reasonable conclusion to make. But Platner is also outspoken about queer rights (including trans rights), supports universal healthcare, and other very progressive views and actions (if I remember correctly he was/is a DSA member). No nazi is going to be supporting those actions, particularly supporting trans people. My personal analysis of him is he is an average blue-collar working class Mainer, and that comes with a lot of complexity and nuance that career politicians do not have, and that voters are not used to seeing in political candidates.
Now that being said, I am an anarchist. I do not vote for people, I only vote on individual issues. Whether or not I like Platner, I am not likely to vote for anyone in the first place. Even if somehow I do end up voting for him, I would quickly accept my wrong doing if it turned out he was an anti-semite or nazi. However I do not think that is the case. I think he is a complicated and nuanced person with a complicated and nuanced past that he has grown and learned from. Its pretty clear from his past that he has undergone a pretty radical shift in his beliefs and politics and that growth should be applauded. He should be held accountable for his mistakes, but they should not permanently brand him.
I think he is a complicated and nuanced person with a complicated and nuanced past that he has grown and learned from. Its pretty clear from his past that he has undergone a pretty radical shift in his beliefs and politics and that growth should be applauded. He should be held accountable for his mistakes, but they should not permanently brand him.
I wish more people had this level of critical thinking.
I’m totally down with everything you’re saying except that you’re potentially not going to vote after you have seen what has happened.
Since you were kinder than the second person who replied to me, I will engage this in good faith. I expressed hesitation for not voting for Platner if he gets to the election (which is still up in the air, cause of the primaries). And as I told the other person, that is because he doesn’t feel like a lesser of the two evils. I do not have to vote for genocide lite to avoid genocide pro, I can just not vote for genocide. Which I want to point out was the main reason for most people protest voting in the first place. We had told the Democrat Party for months that we would not vote for a candidate that was supporting Israel. And we were not quite about it. The Democratic Party did not listen, and people held true to the threats they made. The Democratic Party is at fault for American Fascism, not people who refused to vote between fascism lite and fascism pro.
I have more than just that reason, but I won’t deny it was a major reason. Platner seems like an actually good candidate, and because that addressed a major issue I had with voting I now have reason to reconsider my position on voting.
If you want to change someone’s mind on something, addressing their concerns, respecting their perspective, and working constructively is the best way to get someone to work and agree with you. Guilt tripping, scolding, and shaming on the other hand doesn’t. Thats because it never addresses our concerns, only tries to combat us on our beliefs. Which, at least for myself, you are not going to change.
I share your frustration with the Democrats. They are too deep in the pockets of the corporations; but they are bendable and shame-able, which is something the Republicans are not.
Republicans alone are responsible for their parties policies, actions and attitudes.
If they were bendable and shameable they would have moved on the Palestine issue, but instead they stayed supporting Israel’s genocide. But thats neither here nor there in terms of this specific situation, cause Graham Platner is condemning the genocide. We will see if he gets through the primaries. Still got time before the election to stew on whether I change my mind about voting
You should definitely still vote regardless. You don’t get to have an opinion, no matter how thoughtful and nuanced, if you don’t participate. It doesn’t matter if you morally object to both candidates, if one is clearly fucking worse you vote for the lesser evil. How have you not learned this lesson by now? That shit is why we have fucking fascism today. You’re part of a collective and you need to do your fucking part or fuck off.
It’s funny. This last election cycle I thought exactly like this, but Trump changed it all. I’ll never vote for another liberal or Zionist again. Establishment Dems are just the slower poison, not less evil, just less carcinogenic. Both of these parties are funneling away our futures and our children’s futures for a quick buck. I’d rather the entire system crashes and we rip this band aid off quickly. I do have a voice and it’s been ignored my entire life. Corruption has completely enveloped our government and it needs to be fixed from the top down.
Yeah it does, but this shithole voted in a genocidal maniac who wants to kill me and my friends for the crime of existing. You don’t get to take the moral high ground by declining to participate when doing so means real live innocent people who just want to fucking live will be systematically murdered. Great you want things to get better, so do I, but capitulating to fascism to “rip off the bandaid” is fucking callous moral masturbation.
Clearly you’re still living in some fantasy world where you think working within this corrupt system can yield the results you’re looking for. Not going to happen, especially when you’ll accept any old crusty turd the liberal masters serve you. You don’t get it, our way of life has fundamentally changed already. The train has left the station. The cat is out of the bag. Things will never be the way they were before. Stop levying everything at Trump too, he’s not the problem. The entire right-wing and a large portion of the left-wing wants us dead. Trump is just the flavor of the day. We’ve let the elites get too much power and they won’t relinquish it willingly. I certainly hope you own firearms and ammo. I hope you and your friends know how to use them too. We’re going to need them in the next ten years. In the meantime, stop voting for slop candidates that work on behalf of the elites.
So you voted for the most corrupt person and party? That isn’t particularly logical
I did, lifelong straight-ticket Democrat voter that won’t be blindly making that mistake again.
I will not lie that my opinion on voting as a form of harm reduction is something I have been debating with myself for awhile, even before Trump’s election. However not once has someone like you coming in to shame and guilt and scold me ever pushed me one way or another. You know why? Because you’re all self entitled assholes about it who wouldnt listen to me about a lot of things. You come in with bad faith and want to blame us for fascism rather than, you know, the fascists (which yes includes fascist lite, the Democratic Party). Cause the fact of the matter is we aren’t. You don’t come in here in good faith, you don’t treat us with respect, so if you aren’t going to do that why the fuck should I give you the time of day?
You either say we (people who don’t vote out of protest) hold enough power that we could’ve swayed the vote and delayed America’s decent into fascism, or we aren’t relevant enough for the Democratic party to adapt their platform and candidates to better appeal to us. So which is it? Are we so powerful we cost the election, or are we just some tiny minority worth considering (unlike those mythical moderate republicans the Dems keep chasing apparently)? And you wanna know what? My vote didnt matter because of the electoral college. My state voted blue, so my vote wouldn’t’ve done anything even if I didn’t even show up to the ballot. Which I did, and I voted on the issues up for vote because that is where I can directly impact. Not pass the responsibility to a career politician.
The Democratic Party is the reason for fascism. They knew Palestine was a pivotal issue, and chose genocide over winning the election. They continue to shift more and more right trying to appeal to the illusive moderate republicans, and you want me to encourage that? Cause thats what that vote means. It tells the Democratic Party that they could put anyone out for you and you’d vote for them because they’re the “lesser evil.”
You know what has been able to make me reconsider not voting for people? Candidates that were actually possibly worth voting for like Mamdani and Platner. You know why? Because it actually solves at least some of the issues with why I don’t vote. So maybe if you stopped wasting your time scolding non-voters like me for holding beliefs, standards, and principles that are fundamentally different than yours, but still just as based on logic, reasoning, good faith as yours and instead dedicated that time to pressuring the Democratic Party to choose worth-while candidates we could have a productive discussion.
But untill you are willing to engage in good-faith and work constructively with our perspective, I will end discussion now and give you the kind of attitude you give me. Fuck off.
I’m trans you stupid cunt. The fascists are planning to kill me, my friends, and people like me. It’s not some theoretical moral position about far away shit, it’s a real life existential threat, unfolding before our eyes. Is that not sound enough logic for you, not wanting to die? Fuck your feelings and fuck your “yUo ArEn’T aRgUiNg In GoOd FaItH” bullshit. You don’t deserve respect because people like you fucking bailed when the chips were down and you really needed to show up.
That’s his story.
Except he kept it for 20 years, has reportedly openly referred to it as a Totenkopf in conversations in his personal life, and only got it removed once it started to interfere with his political aspirations. And he still seems tight with a number of right wing podcaster types.
I don’t trust him.
He had it covered up AFTER it was exposed recently. He also reposts literally Nazis on social media. The more distance liberals can put between them and Platner the better.
How do you not know what the second most famous Nazi symbol is, and why didn’t he get it removed?
Ahhhh, until I looked it up just now, I wouldn’t have seen that tattoo on a wall of flash and connect it to the ss.
Hell, I wouldn’t have made the connection without something more at all. The ss pin isn’t what stuck in my memory, it was the general purpose nazi eagle that stuck in my mind because skull and crossbones imagery is just so damn widespread that that specific version just doesn’t seem any different from any of the others I’ve seen.
Until I looked it up I thought it was just a weird pirate thing.
Not everyone is as terminally online as you. Not everyone hyperfixates on nazis.
The overwhelming majority, the average person, only recognizes “swastika = bad”. Thats it. And their whole understanding around is “swastika = nazi = hitler = holocaust = bad” if youre lucky to get that far.
You really think the Drake/KatyPerry/NickiMinage type fan crowd is educating themselves into the military structure and symbolism of the 3rd Reich? These people dont even know what the SS is.
Media doesn’t care. People arguing culture war stupidity makes them money.
