Feel this is a good accompanying piece for all the folk insisting on caping for a Blackwater merc wth a nazi tattoo because he said something they liked.
Also, funny enough, I apparently blocked this guy on reddit on the account I was using back in 2020
So, odds are, I was calling him a nazi back then too.
And yet people are still defending it/are surprised someone doing that many tours and time in Blackwater may not be the brightest
Odds are probably not.
Because his entire reddit history for the past decade has been dug up and none of it points to nazi posting. Even posts that were deleted.
You’d think if he was a secret nazi, then maybe it would show in his private online shitposting. When he wasn’t running for office, when he didnt have to maintain face… but no, its not there.
Literally, ALL, the evidence this smear campaign has is the tattoo (which he immediately covered). None of his private history for a decade supports this. Instead most of the private reddit posts contradict it.
You think a white supremacist is calling white rural voters a bunch of racists? You think a nazi is posting ACAB?
Bottom line is that I’m skeptical of this guy, but this is my take on his whole deal.
He reminds me of a lot of young, infantry people I’ve met in my time: young and full of stupid decisions. I genuinely believe that he got a Totenkopf without realizing what it was. That sounds like something an idiot, young infantryman would do. However, I don’t for a second believe that he didn’t know what it was until recently. That’s a bald faced lie for someone who claims to be a student of history. My read of it is that he realized what he had on himself and he was too ashamed to actually do something about it and instead tried to just keep it a secret. That is, he tried to keep it a secret until he was outed for it. If this is the case, he should have just come clean about it when it came out and just said this, but he didn’t.
As for everything else, I’ll extend him some grace on some (except one) post. Being a trolly edgelord is whatever. Infantry, especially at the time, was very sheltered from the military sexual assault issues, and war is really hard on someone. It can send you to really dark places, especially if that’s all you’ve known. So, apologizing for saying stupid, offensive things and demonstrating change is fine. The one thing I am having a hard time reconciling is the “black people don’t tip” post. He’s actually defending that, which…is a choice. If he disavowed it saying that it’s something he observed but is obviously untrue, then fine, but he didn’t.
I don’t think he’s a closet racist or a closet nazi. I think he might just be kind of dumb. If he’s elected, at least he won’t furrow his brow and vote with Trump on everything.
Sounds like a true representative of the average American.
That’s a very fair point.
What does it matter after he is dumb. Don’t vote for dumb people as leaders. I have posed the question before what is worse dumb or evil and have posited that im kinda leaning toward dumb. I mean at least a highly intelligent person wanting the best for them and everyone else be damned may recognize how being a regular person in an advanced economy is better than being a king in the middle ages.
This feels like it is being orchestrated against this guy, if I’m going to be honest.
Does it matter?
Here are the facts:
- He has an SS skull tattooed on his chest
- He got it 20-ish years ago
- He finally covered it up 1-ish week ago
- He insisted he did not know the meaning of it as recently as this week
- He apparently was getting into internet arguments over how he knew the meaning of it and it was not 5 years ago
- Thus, he has known he had a nazi tattoo for at least 5 years
I don’t care if it is Emperor Palpatine behind this and Sheev starts giving crotch chops over how he got all of us. I just care about not electing a fucking nazi to the senate under the Democrat flag. Republicans already got that shit on lock.
In none of those threads did he say he had a Nazi tattoo. In fact, he argued in all of those threads that Nazi associated tattoos (skulls and lightning bolts) are often gotten by people in the military without any personal association of them with white supremacy. Which is what his story is.
Calling this guy a secret Nazi is insane.
Who puts a totenkopf on their body the size of a grapefruit, over their heart, and doesn’t know what it is?
It wasn’t a Jolly Rodger skull and cross bones it was Hitler’s SS skull and crossbones.
The artist definitely knew what they were doing.
The tattoo was done in Croatia, an area known for fascists.
He was Blackwater for fs sake.
All one has to do to make you follow them is talk about class consciousness.
He is controlled opposition just like Fettermen.
Your theory here is that he’s a secret Nazi who in his anonymous online life as a nobody posted some bland prejudice rather than Nazi entryism, talked left wing politics, decided it was time to run for office and instead of running in the party openly embracing racism and Nazis decided to run in a Democratic primary, and then as his master plan was being put into motion, just like forgot to cover up the tattoo that could reveal his big secret.
Being Blackwater is a solid criticism, and I hope to God that’s your real motivating reason, because believing this secret Nazi theory is just insane.
Bro if he’s not a nazi - that is, if he didn’t know what kind of skull he was permanently inking on his chest - then he is uneducated enough not to be suitable for public office.
But even if you do enough mental gymnastics and forget about the nazi tattoo, the fact that he was a Blackwater merc should be enough to dissuade anyone from voting for him.
If this man somehow made a 180° in his 40s and went from a nazi merc to some sort of leftie, that’s awesome for him. That’s nothing short of a miracle right there, divine intervention kind of stuff. Big clap. Still shouldn’t be voting for him and he should be humble enough not to be running in the first place. Let someone who had it right all along give it a go.
I disagree with the idea that we should even want our politicians (or leaders in general) to have lived perfectly virtuous lives. I would much rather someone who has made mistakes AND LEARNED FROM THEM in a leadership role because… that is literally life experience.
The problem is that… there is absolutely zero indication that platner learned from anything. He was still using homophobic slurs as recently as 2020, he is outright lying about why he still had a nazi tattoo, and, most importantly:
NOBODY knows who he is. Near as I can tell, his credentials are that he is a reddit shitposter who says good things about M4A. He does not have an extensive history doing volunteer/charity work or any form of activism. He basically was in the military, then joined Blackwater, then took over an oyster farming business with his wife where even he acknowledges he mostly depends on his disability payments for said time in the military.
Whereas, at an old job, I was regularly part of the unofficial commitee that worked to improve diversity and equality in our hiring practices. And one of the strongest allies was a woman who was fairly cagey about her past. She was the one who most regularly took advantage of company programs to maximize donations to advocacy groups and she very regularly was suspected to be the person who put the flyers up about protests and the like. And she was always the first person to go REAL fucking hard when people started using dog whistles to explain why they didn’t want to even advertise to Women in Engineering or the various Black Engineering lists.
And… for a lot of us who got to know her out of work, she was fairly open that she grew up in The South to a very religious family and did a lot of things she is ashamed of in her youth. And… a few of us definitely had suspicions over a fairly large and prominent tattoo on her shoulder that seemed to be covering Something up. But she was also very open that she has spent most of her life atoning for her past mistakes and I don’t know a single person who didn’t consider her a fucking Ally.
Contrast that with “I talked about how much I like socialism on twitter”.
Contrast that with “I talked about how much I like socialism on twitter”.
That is a comical and disgraceful summary of Platner’s career. Hell, running for office wasn’t even his idea. He was recruited by local labor unions, directly as a result of his activism work, not his online posts.
if he didn’t know what kind of skull he was permanently inking on his chest - then he is uneducated
Oh piss off. The overwhelming majority of people (even on Lemmy) didnt know what a totenkopf was until this incident. I wouldn’t be surprised if YOU just learned about this
The question isn’t what we know. It’s that he says, in the 20 years he’s had the tattoo, he never learned who also used it, and no one else ever mentioned it to him. That is highly improbable. Its not that he has the tattoo, it’s that his justifications so far are implausible.
I didn’t know what it was. An upon looking it up, Germans used it going back to the 1700s. It also looks cool so it’s a damn shame the Nazis ruined it, just like they ruined everything.
This is one of those razors, malice and incompetence, that one. Walk in tattoo parlor, they have pictures, you pick one. Know many Marines who did that very thing, though mainly women or eagles or some shit.
Hahaha I hit a nerve apparently 😂 I don’t expect everyone to know what this symbol is, but before you tattoo something, come on! As for myself, I’m from a country that suffered under the Germans and I’m well aware of what they did, their atrocities etc and their various insignia. Also I’m a fan of Mark Felton on YouTube so yeah, I knew, sorry.
Btw the overwhelming majority of people don’t have nazi tattoos and don’t run for public office so I don’t give a fuck if they know or not. He should fucking know.
Synema didn’t have a Nazi tattoo and look how that went.
What is that supposed to mean? How does Sinema relate at all? Sinema never campaigned as a progressive. Right from the start she was presenting herself as a maverick centrist. We just hoped that was a lie.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kyrsten-sinema-conservative-democrat/
In 2002, The Arizona Republic published a letter from Kyrsten Sinema, then a social worker preparing to run for a seat in the state House of Representatives, putting forth a critique of capitalism. Capitalism, she wrote, gave us NAFTA, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, which benefit the American ruling class at the expense of workers in the United States and abroad. “Until the average American realizes that capitalism damages her livelihood while augmenting the livelihoods of the wealthy, the Almighty Dollar will continue to rule,” she concluded. “It certainly is not ruling in our favor.”
I think voters were suckered again into thinking she “had” to court rw voters to win but would stay true to her expressed values, whether they were sincerely held or not. I’ve seen this play out for over four decades, repeatedly and somehow we always move economically right, regardless of superficial socially left policy that incidentally is never codified, along the way, with rare exceptions that conveniently disappear instantaneously when one party regains control, while the most abhorrent are perniciously stubborn and stick when the other party regains control.
All I’m saying is he is not the person he says he is. What self-respecting tattoo artist would put that on someone for shits and giggles? Croatia is a known hotspot for fascists.
This is a very specific death’s head and is intricate enough for just being a death’s head. Also, who puts a grapefruit-sized tattoo on their chest, over their heart, without knowing its significance?
When was the last time you put that kind of tattoo on your body as a lark?
But the only way this is a “turn against him regardless of the other options” issue is if he’s a secret Nazi, so whether that theory is remotely plausible is the key question. Not “when did he know” or “did he really not see that one connect sketch that is, for most of us, the only time we’ve ever seen a tottenkopf”. And it’s just not plausible.
Anyone but secret Nazi is just a shade of “that was dumb/lazy/clueless of you”, which is not a reason to purge the progressive and just take whatever else we can.
I gather there is another progressive in the race that’s not taken off, so let them make their case and see if they can march his energy. If we have an option that’s drawing crowds and free from issues, cool, but if not, a guy with good intentions and some questionable decisions is easily better than an ancient neoliberal who’s going to die in office and play Susan Collins from the left until she does. Trying to push a nonsensical theory about a secret Nazi that even when they thought they were an anonymous shitposter on Reddit never acted like a Nazi is at this point indistinguishable from just trying to get Mills elected.
What kind of Nazis do you know make comments like “all cops are bastards?”
That’s antithetical to the entire idea of being a Nazi.
How many leftists do you know that have a tottenkopf the size of a grapefruit over their hearts? Zero, because someone with a totenkopf over their heart is a fascist.
Bullshit circular logic.
How so? Please explain.
I can say you don’t have a brain and not bring a shred of evidence and it doesn’t make it true.
Back your shitty statement up, please.
Does it matter?
Yes. A lot. And it really worries me how the left fall for these obviously coordinated smear campaigns like this and the one against Hasan.
How quickly the left will turn on its own when the real monsters and real fascists currently in power benefit from it.
Having good politics doesn’t mean someone is inherently virtuous. Except platner doesn’t even have that. He just showed up out of nowhere saying he had good politics.
And, personally? I don’t consider Nazis to be “one of our own”. But apparently that doesn’t matter to “leftists”.
Nothing about anything that he’s done suggests he’s actually a Nazi. Only this tattoo, a symbol most people don’t even know is a Nazi symbol. A tattoo he has a reasonable explanation for and immediately had covered up.
Someone who is a Nazi will have other signs, which he doesn’t have.
You want to believe he’s a Nazi and no amount of counter evidence will sway you.
Nothing about anything that he’s done suggests he’s actually a Nazi. Only this tattoo
And now to editorialize
A tattoo he has a reasonable explanation for that is now demonstrably a lie and
immediatelyhad covered up 20 years after getting it and 5 years after confirming he understood it was related to the SS totenkomp.But yeah. The problem is all of us who believe the guy with an SS tattoo who lied about knowing it had SS ties is a nazi.
If he’s a Nazi, point to literally any other proof.
Nazis tend to go around spouting Nazi propaganda. Show us some of that, please.
What, an actual salient argument? You expect too much from these Schumer-bots.
I agree. It doesn’t matter.
He claims: "For 20 years I didn’t know the thing I had permanently engraved on my body is a Nazi symbol. "
- A. He is a a moron ( technical term) – and Disqualified.
- B. He is a liar — and ALSO Disqualified.
That’s almost certainly true. And i believe him when he says those tattoos are commonplace, that marines don’t consider the original meaning, and that he knows black & Latino people with them.
But i think, at the very least, not getting it covered up before choosing to run for office demonstrates a staggering lack of political acumen and is a very large indication of a lack of good judgement.
I mean, we don’t give ordinary people a pass if they fly a Confederate flag and say it’s just because they’re from the US South and it’s meaning for them is entirely divorced from slavery. Same thing here, except politicians are supposed to be held to higher standards.
I’d also say that the times the US is finding itself in, with rapidly encroaching fascism, open racism, and the slightly-more-gradual embracing of Nazi symbolism from the current administration, makes it even more important for the left to reject someone with a literal Nazi tattoo - regardless of how they got it and what it may mean to them.
CNN also spoke with an acquaintance of Platner from more than a decade ago who said Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
Hard working journalists looking for anybody that will protect Susan Collins!
Hard working journalists looking for anybody that will protect Susan Collins!
Or just anyone with eyes that saw the tattoo?
But they went for the acquaintance from 10 years ago as a source.
For a tattoo he’s had for almost 20years
I mean it’s likely him or Collins. I’ll take the devil I don’t know.
The election is one year away and over six months until registration for the primary ends. There is zero reason to stick with someone that has this many red flags. If he manages to win the primary, he will all but guarantee another Collins victory, because its real easy to write attack ads against this guy.
You know how Bernicrats always get smeared as being low key bigots? This doesn’t help with that image. I have seen multiple POC and jewish people on bluesky lamenting the fact that Bernie’s supporters are known for purity tests, but the cis-white male with a nazi tattoo gets a pass. That’s the image that is being conveyed to the public at large. There’s just no way to come back from having a nazi tattoo when running as a democrat in this day and age. And ‘I got it covered up once everyone found out’ is not an answer that is going to fly for the majority of people out there.
This isn’t the DNC going against him, Ken Martin supports him, Bernie still endorses him, he was all over CNN like a month ago as the exciting outsider oysterman who tells it like it is. And then it came out he has a nazi tattoo. So much of the general public turned on him. Some reporter said that when polling dem senators about it, they all said the tattoo wasn’t an issue, and still think he’s good for engagement. It isn’t them going against him, and most news articles are still going soft on him, and using his phrasing to describe it. But the general public hears nazi tattoo and, rightfully, wants nothing to do with him.
You know how Bernicrats always get smeared as being low key bigots?
I’ve often noticed this.
Ignoring the part that is obvious psyops being directed at the left, it seems like some people think that if you focus on issues of class primarily and don’t constantly harp on issues of identity instead, that makes someone a “bigot”. I think that’s how the thinking goes, but what the people with the hyper-focus on “intersectionality” seem to be missing is that this kind of hair-splitting is exactly the tactic the elites employ to divide everyone up…and some of these scolds seem to be doing everything exactly as the elites would want them to go about it…
The fact of the matter is Bernie has always been weak on race issues. He botched the BLM protests in 2016 and has never had sufficient outreach to the Black community. I don’t think he’s a bigot at all, but he doesn’t seem to understand that there is more than class war. To dismiss the concerns of the Black community in America as being just part of a larger class war is incredibly insensitive. All classes of white people have marginalized POC in this country repeatedly throughout its history.
I love Bernie, but this is a major flaw of his. In 2016 it was somewhat understandable as he is from Vermont and was kinda blindsided by everything, but he still has not progressed on this issue and I don’t think either he or enough of his supporters get how off-putting it is to these communities.
At the end of the day? Sanders is a rich, privileged, 84-year old white male. And he has been a professional politician for almost half his life.
Sanders argues for class politics and fucking good for him. But he ignores race and identity because… that hasn’t been a concern for him in closer to 60 years than not. Same with his LONG track record of shitty views on immigration: American Leftists (also other countries) kinda were actively opposed to immigration up until fairly recently as it was largely viewed as a way to bring in cheap labor to take away American jobs (and… it kinda was…).
But what that results in is that we have an 84 year old man who thinks he still is living in the 1970s and 1980s… in the 2020s. And now that he finally has a platform after literally being the meme about how nobody gives a shit about white guys talking on CSPAN… he is rapidly becoming an example of why it is ALWAYS shut the fuck up Friday and it maybe is time for grandpa to step down.
But the problem is that so many people have decided he is the only hope for “socialism” in the world and are insisting that any shitty thing he does isn’t a symptom of being old as fuck but is actually some deeply intelligent 4-d chess. Which is why “h1b visas are bad” is such a “both sides” talking point and so forth.
Think about it this way: You are going to the store to buy some bulk food. Let’s say kidney beans. You grab the scooper, try not to think about who the last person who used it was, and then dump a scoop or four into your bag. You eyeball it to make sure nothing looks overly bad, but you aren’t going to individually check each bean. You’ll just dump them in water and see which are the bad floaters. It is less than a few pennies worth of lost food so whatever.
Good on you. You are privileged. Most of us are.
Now understand there are people in the world who can’t do that. They actually have to very slowly add the loose beans to their bag because a lot of them ARE rotten or overly damaged.
It isn’t an inherent flaw that you or I don’t check each individual bean. But it also means that we don’t have the perspective to advocate for those who need to.
Dawg, he’s got a Nazi tattoo. My non-white ass is done with him.
Demand better of your representatives.
No, no, no, but don’t you see? We’re the ones stopping labor progress by being concerned about what happens to our communities~ And, of course, communities of color have never been behind progresses of labor rights while focusing on issues of race (as if they don’t often go hand-in-hand)~
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It is over a year until the election. There are multiple primary candidates. Maybe we should look a bit farther than the nazi who joined Blackwater after hanging out at Abu Ghraib
Say what you will about Hasan, I think his take on the tattoo is spot on. Regardless of whether or not he has or had Nazi sympathies, it shows a just complete incompetence in how the campaign was run and he’s just a liability to progressive movements.
If he isn’t going to take his campaign itself seriously. How you present yourself and are perceived in public matters and affects your ability to develop coalitions to push through legislation, especially on a national scale as a senator.
If I were a Maine voter, I would hold my nose and vote for him, but the next election cycle, he’s got to go unless he really shows some maturity in how he runs a national campaign within the first year. Otherwise, start looking for and pushing a different candidate for the next election cycle.
I’m getting Fetterman from him
Say what you will about Hasan
According to his own words, he is already supporting Janet Mills, who is seemingly antithetical to his expressed political ideology and values i.e. her being loosely pro-genocide and a neoliberal.
Do you have a source for that? Only clip I could find had him also endorsing Susan Collins and was clearly satirical. The stream I watched had him not really sure how to react to it for a while. I think he assumed the skull was more well known than it actually was, like if he had an actual swastika on his chest.
I don’t know how he squares the Gaza stance but he definitely has said he is supporting mills. If you watch his video about graham covering the tattoo he says it a couple times near the end.
As Soulg said, the end of the video he did on Graham on his main YouTube channel is my source. If I recall correctly, he says he supports Janet Mills, states that she has a clear track record, and says that he’s apart of “Mill’s Mafia”. It didn’t feel satirical, but he definitely didn’t have his heart behind it either seemingly.
It just feels hypocritical of him to already be supporting somebody so in conflict with him. Somebody who is as old as she is, somebody who is pretty unpopular, somebody who represents the establishment and is also backed by them.
The entire Left seems to not fucking understand that there is over a year until the general (over six months until the actual primaries?) but I have increasingly come to accept this is people re-litigating “The election is 3 months out. We don’t have time for a primary” in the stupidest way possible.
But… welcome to being an adult. Ideologically? You can hate a mother fucker. But, at the end of the day, it is all about minimizing harm. You pick the lesser of the evils. And a bog standard establishment Liberal is way better than a lying Nazi who shows more and more signs of pulling a Fetterman every week.
I can’t speak for Hasan as I find him to be insufferable. But if he really is making it a point to emphasize the lesser evil? Good on him. His constant “I am going to vote for Kamala but I can’t tell you to because she is genocidal” bullshit definitely didn’t help things last year.
Primaries are when you have ideological wars. Generals are when you hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil. And you hope that the groups you are throwing under the bus (almost always women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ folk) haven’t decided they just don’t care and want EVERYONE to suffer along with them anymore.
I’m trying to follow the conversation here but I am unsure who Hasan is. The only person I’m aware of that’s famous enough to be recognized by that name is the comedian. Has he become more involved in politics or is it someome else?
Hasan Piker is basically the left wing joe rogan. He got his start working for family at The Young Turks and pivoted to twitch where he does a mix of playing video games, rebroadcasting other people’s content while he goes to the bathroom, and provide Baby’s First Leftist Thought to a large amount of the internet.
When he is good (like going outdoors to interview people at protests), he is really good and a force to be reckoned with. When he is bad (sitting in his mansion talking about The Struggle while attacking any leftwing politician who fails his purity tests), he is deeply obnoxious. And he is very blatantly every single tankie you ever rolled your eyes at on reddit and has a bad habit of parroting putin/xi talking points until he realizes his chat is getting angry at him. But, at all times, he is influential.
Ah ok, gotcha, thanks for the information. Sounds very polarizing in his behavior.
Ideologically? You can hate a mother fucker. But, at the end of the day, it is all about minimizing harm.
This is a harmful idea to spread and is exactly why the Democratic Party doesn’t give a fuck about its voters or potential voters.
And a bog standard establishment Liberal is way better
He’s running on a progressive platform, which is way better. The “bog standard establishment Liberal” is free to compete with populist policies and run on the same damn things.
But if he really is making it a point to emphasize the lesser evil? Good on him.
The primary and election are far out. No, this is not good on him.
His constant “I am going to vote for Kamala but I can’t tell you to because she is genocidal” bullshit definitely didn’t help things last year.
People are free to have red lines in a democracy. Politicians would be wise to respond to them, after all, they are supposed to be keying in on those issues and representing us.
A pro-corporate, pro-genocide geriatric is not desirable choice to be a senator. A significant portion of the country is disenfranchised, have you ever asked yourself why so few people vote?
This is a harmful idea to spread and is exactly why the Democratic Party doesn’t give a fuck about its voters or potential voters.
Again, what is the alternative? Help trump win rather than pick the option that causes you the least amount of harm>
He’s running on a progressive platform, which is way better
He is a nazi who has already been caught in a massive lie about his nazi tattoo. Again, Fetterman. People lie
Again, what is the alternative?
Encourage voters to vote however they want to in a democracy and encourage politicians to test the waters and to really understand what 1) wins them elections 2) attracts voters 3) and restores trust in our institutions.
Voting is just one part of a working democracy, never forget that.
Again, Fetterman. People lie
And Janet Mills is another Dianne Feinstein in the making.
If Janet Mills and Graham Planter were my choices right now in a primary, I’d vote for Graham Platner because he is running on populist policies and doesn’t have a clear track record of being a corporate minion that doesn’t represent their state. Also factoring into my decision are the strong indicators that she will lose to Susan Collins.
“It’s cool. I covered it up. I didn’t even know it was nazi-ish”
Next, it’ll be “I’m being targeted. This is a smear job”
I think I still believe his politics are genuine and that he’s not a secret Nazi. Definitely a bad look though, seems like he did indeed lie about when he knew. Probably has good memories connected to it and made excuses for it to keep those despite its obvious imagery. Very unfortunate that the scandal is getting more teeth because of what appears to be a bad and false attempt to minimize it.
If this was a mistake about something that wasn’t literal nazismz it would be a witch hunt. However it’s actual nazi imagery and lies and cover ups and comments that align with nazi type beliefs. He may be reformed but denying it and pretending is not a sign of reformz even if human.
We should welcome Nazis who reformz that haven’t committed nazi acrsz only expressed their horrible views, but they should be denouncing those views and apologising.
I think the bad attempt to minimise it is what is giving it legs.
Nothing else he’s done has aligned with an actual Nazi. The dumb shit has all been the types of prejudices that are unfortunately pretty common, not dog whistles about 14 words or European culture or birthrates or any other Nazi entryism.
Hopefully you aren’t a Maine voter because you’re falling for obvious misdirection and smear tactics. Anything to keep him from talking about healthcare for all or taxes on billionaires.
As an actual Maine voter, I’ll be happy to vote for him in the primary and hopefully the general.
I suggest you go watch when a reporter asked Bernie Sanders about the tattoo and do some reflection about where you get your media and what your priorities are.
Priorities (not ranked) 1. Policy position on unions and living wages, civil rights, all the basics 2. Pac and aipac money. 3. Anti Trump’s policies. 3. Integrity based on history of behaviors and current behavior. Especially including sexual misconduct.
Things not a priority.
- Appearance. 2. Gender. 3. . Ethnicity 4… Insensitive costumes from 20 years ago which were socially acceptable then. 5. Tattoos up for interpretation of some affiliation (no evidence he was affiliated with any Nazi group). .
Keep your priorities straight.
My priorities are not electing more Nazis.
Then you should have no problem with Platner as he’s not a Nazi.
He just… permanently scars his flesh like one!
Nazi’s use this tattoo, He uses this tattoo, Therefore he is a Nazi.
A plane is a thing that flies, A bird is a thing that flies, Therefore a bird is a plane.
I know it’s a meme to call OP an idiot, but you’re employing a fallacy that would get you laughed out of even a highschool classroom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
Some syllogistic examples of guilt by association:
- John is a
Con artistNazi. John hasblack haira tattoo. Therefore, people withblack haira tattoo are necessarilyCon artistsnazis. - Lyle is a crooked salesman. Lyle proposes a monorail. Therefore, the proposed monorail is necessarily a folly.
- Country X is a dangerous country. Country X has a national postal service. Therefore, countries with national postal services are necessarily dangerous.
- Simon and Karl live in Nashville, and they are both petty criminals. Jill lives in Nashville; therefore, Jill is necessarily a petty criminal.
Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem, if the argument attacks a person because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.
Got it. He just likes the aesthetics of the SS. Just like musk just likes to stretch his arm in a “roman salute”. And trump just liked the cheese plates that epstein had everywhere he went.
And… you using high schoolers as your example of great thinkers is just so on the nose that I can’t even think of a good joke. I mostly just feel bad for you.
Got it. He just likes the aesthetics of the SS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Are you just scrolling fallacies on Wikipedia or did your network not get trained with more advanced arguments than simply making bad faith arguments tinged with sarcasm?
- John is a
I don’t see anything in the article that is a cause for concern
It’s just cause he said it didn’t know what it was until very recently, and this hints otherwise. I’ve also heard that he’s interested in war history as well, so I find it hard to believe that he wouldn’t know, likely the 3rd most known Nazi symbol. I still believe he’s changed, and grown, but this is a tough hole to dig yourself out of, especially if you’re not honest about it.
Yeah. There are a few ways to read this but what we know is:
- He had the tattoo for about 20 years until he finally removed it as part of his political campaign
- He insisted, as of even this week, that he had no idea about its meaning or the concept of an SS skull even though he is terminally online and a self proclaimed military history buff
- Apparently he DID know exactly what it was and defended it as just being a thing people in the army get as of 5 years ago
So… that means he was lying to voters AND had the tattoo for at least 5 years after knowing it was a nazi symbol. Maybe he changed… in the last week… which was like two and a half months into his political career. Or, you know, maybe he is lying about more than one thing.
To be clear. I think a VERY reasonable take is that he didn’t want to acknowledge the military was rotten back in 2020 because that would be acknowledging he was part of something evil. It happens.
But to not have gotten it removed/covered up the MOMENT he considered running for office? That is just immense stupidity.
And to continue to not want to acknowledge that “yeah… the US military has a hard-on for nazi imagery” as part of that campaign? Absolute best case scenario, that depicts someone who cares more about votes than truth which, again, raises the question of what else he is saying to get those votes.
If the election were next week? I mean… we all voted for Kamala, right? But it isn’t. This is pre-primaries. We got time to find a candidate who has progressive ideals but doesn’t have a fucking SS skull on their chest. And, preferably, someone who is actually a leader and isn’t afraid of addressing the wrongs of the world.
It’s a BS distraction. Nobody reporting on this honestly thinks this guy is a nazi. But they think they can knock him out of the race by running nazi stories about him.
It’s just like the phrase “globalize the intifada” being brought up in every single media interaction with Mamdani. He doesn’t say it, but simply doesn’t condemn people for saying it cause it has many meanings. He’s made it clear and yet every interview or debate I’ve see it is brought up.
But they think they can knock him out of the race by running nazi stories about him.
Sure, let’s pretend this is all some evil conspiracy theory against the guy who came out of nowhere a few months back and has the entire left leaning podcast space glazing him.
They are not “running nazi stories about him”. They are reporting facts about a nazi tattoo he has. And then reporting facts about him defending said nazi tattoo after he had already denied understanding it was a fucking nazi tattoo.
I don’t care if it is mother fucking trump screaming he has an SS skull on his chest while raping a toddler ian watkins style if there is actually a fucking SS skull on his chest that had been there for twenty years and through at least one crash out over defending the fucking SS skull.
This is the kind of shit that happens in really bad direct to VHS 24 ripoffs.
So you honestly believe this guy is a Nazi? He called himself a “radical left” in those same comments.
If it walks like a nazi, oppresses people as part of a paramilitary organization like a nazi (again, he willingly joined fucking Blackwater), and tattos its skin like a nazi?
I genuinely don’t care how he says he’ll vote (and trust him about as far as I can throw him). I just know he’ll clearly have no problem hurting the people I love.
But nah, this was just a roman salute that he tattooed on his flesh for 20 years
I’m terminally online and just thought it was a funny looking skull until this article. It’s not distinct like it’s a hammer and sickle or a laser shooting kiwi. It’s a skull and crossbones and there’s probably 100 combinations of those and only this one with the Nazi roots.
It doesn’t seem like something unreasonable.
It does seem like a well funded smear campaign.So… back in 2020 he knew it was a totenkopf and had a lineage to the SS but figured it was just funny looking?
Something is definitely getting smeared alright.
The article just said reddit acct talked about ss lightning. Not that skull and bones symbol. Or am I wrong,
You are wrong
https://web.archive.org/web/20190226141422/https:/www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/battleweary_ss/ is one of the threads. He is specifically replying to someone talking about the military’s use of skulls and nazi imagery by insisting it is actually a punisher skull.
At BEST you are arguing that he has immensely poor judgment, zero reading comprehension, and suckles on propaganda from the teat without a moment’s thoughts. Which is not leadership material.
Mean this skull? That looks nothing like the actual skull in question? And that apparently was being used by military and police?
https://www.inverse.com/article/39633-marvel-netflix-punisher-skull-meaning-cops-soldiers
Removed by mod
Apparently he DID know exactly what it was and defended it as just being a thing people in the army get as of 5 years ago
This is a bit of a nitpick, but he didn’t defend the totenkopf. He said SS bolts were common in the military and in his opinion not indicative of nazism. He commented in a thread that mentioned the totenkopf, but his comment was in reply to a message about the punisher skull and didn’t mention the totenkopf. It’s not inconceivable he didn’t read the parts about the totenkopf (though the root of the thread is a mention of it).
When commenters in the 2020 thread described the lightning bolts as a Nazi or racist symbol, Platner dismissed the criticism, writing that outsiders “have no idea what they’re talking about” and added, “I will be sure to inform the Black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now.”
Do you REALLY want to keep defending this guy because maybe he is just really really really fucking stupid and was selectively reading every single comment he replied to?
And musk really was doing a roman salute and just didn’t realize the other possible meanings until it was too late, sure.
What blew my mind about the Nazi salute was Cory Booker doing it and hardly anyone batted an eye.
You are wrong
https://web.archive.org/web/20190226141422/https:/www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/battleweary_ss/ is one of the threads. He is specifically replying to someone talking about the military’s use of skulls and nazi imagery by insisting it is actually a punisher skull.
At BEST you are arguing that he has immensely poor judgment, zero reading comprehension, and suckles on propaganda from the teat without a moment’s thoughts. Which is not leadership material.
Not to mention that he was in Blackwater, so there is a lot of truth in US military being rotten, but he would have to acknowledge that part of his life if he wants my personal support. Then again, I’d guess that most of the vets who commit suicide have acknowledged it, so it’s not a winning path for him either way.
Yeah. Something was rubbing me weird as I read more on this guy and how he basically came out of nowhere and, allegedly, had a platform very similar to a different military vet who may or may not have had the same PR team at the start but more or less got laughed out of the race. Except Smith-Rodriguez’s version of the demsoc candidate platform had actual plans and action items rather than just appeals to emotion.
Like… yes, it is a state level election. But you don’t come out of absolutely nowhere and become the one true hope for the Democrats. Okay… Obama actually DID but he had actually had a political career until then, we just weren’t paying attention.
And then it hit me. A couple weeks/months back, the youtube (Business) Insider channel did one of their “authorized accounts” on a mercenary who worked for fucking Blackwater. It was one of the darkest things I have watched on that channel and they have had klansmen, murderous neo nazi bikers, and the mother fucker who led the WACO slaughter. So… yeah.
More than a bit tinfoil but that REALLY felt like an attempt to rehab mercs, specifically Blackwater, as “just another soldier” and that they are “misunderstood”.
Considering Skorzeny Jr is crashing out and demanding his staff (ex or otherwise) retroactively sign NDAs… stuff is gonna be REAL juicy.
Like… yes, it is a state level election. But you don’t come out of absolutely nowhere and become the one true hope for the Democrats. Okay… Obama actually DID but he had actually had a political career until then, we just weren’t paying attention.
Platner has also had a political career prior to this. He didn’t come out of nowhere. You think the unions that recruited him to run did so based on 20 year old reddit comments?
It really sucks how easy it is to co-opt the left. Heard a good term yesterday to describe it. The AOCificafion. And Mamdani is the next one on the chopping block.
Eh. It is really just the same populism we see with trump (actively NOT going to list the “leftist” version of him…).
People don’t actually care about his policies. Otherwise we would have immediately said “Yo, is Smith-Rodriguez willing to get back up there?”. Instead it is all about wanting to capture the excitement of a candidate that Spoke to them and immediately attacking anyone who isn’t via “purity tests”.
I mean… look at how many people clown on AOC because she didn’t actively snub a conference on antisemitism (?). I’m sure that people will eventually find a reason to get mad at Mamdani because he just isn’t <REDACTED>.
And… look at Kamala. Yeah, she is a cop and has shitty views on the genocide committed by israel. But her shitty views were still NOTHING compared to trump’s shitty views. But the discourse IMMEDIATELY became how she is horrible and the worst candidate ever and blah blah blah let’s let trump win to make things even worse for everyone.
Which is why the platner shit is so infuriating. The Left™ will throw away any candidate that is not The Chosen One over ordering the wrong cup of coffee. But when we have a fucking blackwater merc with a nazi tattoo, fucked up views on sexual assault, and zero political background? Yo guys, we need to win elections so let’s give nazism a chance.
Which… REALLY fucking highlights what women, people of color, and our LGBTQIA+ “friends” have been saying for over a decade now.
Did he even get it removed? I read he got it covered up, frankly there’s still a fucking totenkopf under there. I’m not saying he has to cut off his skin, I’m just saying too little too late. Especially for a real life merc.
Getting a tattoo removed isnt a simple one and done procedure. It takes months to remove a tattoo. Several appointments breaking it down, letting it heal, breaking it down, repeat. And it doesnt work with all tattoos/ink colors/skin colors.
You, naively, dont know what youre talking about. Getting a tattoo covered is the fastest and most common way to get rid of an old tattoo.
I know all that, why i said it’s too little too late, he’s had years to do this the right way. Now i know forever he still has what he described to friends as “my totenkopf” is with him forever just under that tattoo.
To little, to late!
Platner weighed in on a conversation about the “Totenkopf” — the skull-and-crossbones emblem worn by Nazi SS units that his own tattoo would later draw scrutiny for resembling — to note that many US service members had adopted similar imagery, such as the Punisher skull used by some Navy SEALs.
He said he was radically left 😱😱😱
You didn’t see the part about having a reddit account?
He had a reddit acct a few yrs ago, when it was cool and not all spezzed out
You should vote based on behaviors. Not a skull tattoo that is only subjectively associated with Nazis.
He also clarified the situation.
What more do you want from him?
You want to vote for the person the billionaires and trump and Israel are pushing for instead. ?
Because of a skull tattoo that does not look like any Nazi icons or symbols. But that some say could be related?
Vote based on policy and behavior of candidate. Not on what others say about what type of person they think he is when none even know him.
Lutra
The issue is not the tattoo. It’s that for many, his explanation of the tattoo is weak.
Okay, what are his behaviors?
I know, let’s judge him on getting a god damned SS skull tattooed on his chest 20 years ago? No? Okay.
Let’s judge him based on having confirmed he knows the heritage of said tattoo 5 years ago and STILL not getting it removed? No?
Can we judge him based on actively lying to the people he is trying to convince to vote for him about said tattoo? With the dumbest fucking excuse ever of him being a terminally online military history buff who was completely unaware of the fucking totenkopf? No? Damn, you got some real high standards.
I know! We can judge him based on his long history of homophobic slurs and really shitty views on sexual assault? No? Well, this IS America, women and gays don’t matter. Moving on.
OOH OOOH! Can we judge him on having fucking joined Blackwater as a PMC? Still no? Damn.
Okay, fine. Let’s judge him based on his long history of community service and political activism. ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND.
Okay, fine. We’ll judge him based on a few things he said over the past couple months and a long history of internet shitposting. Platner For President!!!
What more do you want from him?
Honestly? To acknowledge he lied to his potential constituents and the American people. And to probably step down on this cycle because his very existence undermines every single “trump et al are fucking nazis” campaign.
I would also genuinely love for him to talk about how he was peer pressured into it in the military and that he was too ashamed to stand up. And then I want him to spend the next seven-ish years actually showing he has changed. Get those community service hours. Engage in political activism. Show us he is worth something.
Wait, why did I say seven years? Isn’t a senate term six?
You want to vote for the person the billionaires and trump and Israel are pushing for instead. ?
No. I want people to fucking realize it is over a year until the actual election and there is still PLENTY of time to continue this primary. And… maybe they can consider that Smith-Rodriguez was ALSO a veteran who ALSO had a demsoc platform
Literally your only argument is around a tattoo. Seriously. ? You literally have nothing else.
Nothing.
Yup. Nothing other than a guy lying about his two decades of repping the SS. Oh, that and the whole Blackwater mercenary thing. And the lack of any kind of political record. And the homophobic comments. And the shitty stance on sexual assault.
But yeah, aside from all that, we have nothing. I guess he really is all white.
You’re just lying though. None of his posts confirmed he knew what it was.
In the thread in question
- Person A: The totenkopf on the dude first on the left is a good clue.
- Person B: has literal human skulls on uniform (…)
- Person C: Many soldiers still use the skull as an emblem (see the Punisher skull for the SEALs) or regiment emblems all around the world. It’s a way of making others fear them and all. (…)
- Person D: (…) Punisher is a kind of unofficial emblem and it’s more something some individuals do. I’ve seen it more on civvy and moto stuff than on actual servicemen.
And, reproduced without edits, Lil Skorzeny himself
When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers.
There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while.
Confirming he understands that the punisher skull usage is in the same vein as the totenkopf. And considering his tattoo is much closer to the latter and he outright mocks the former?
So… try again. Maybe argue that him knowing how stupid it looks is an indicator that he always hated the nazi tattoo he had for 20 years and is thus a hero. Or just scream “fake news” until you go blue in the face.
Being downstream in a thread that mentioned totenkopf and then veered into Punisher skulls is not the same thing as “of hey, I’ve got one of those on my body”. His reply is about Punisher skulls and in response to someone who was talking about Punisher skulls, who was themselves responding to a comment about Punisher skulls. There wasn’t a picture posted and the comment immediately under it called it a “skull”. He jumped in two replies deep into a conversation on the use of Punisher skulls in the military and if he wondered what the German word was 4 comments up, he already saw that it was “a skull”, which him and others already saw as a pretty widely used icon.
Surely you’ve never seen someone join into a conversation in a child comment who obviously didn’t think deeply about a comment 4 levels upstream. Not on our Internet.
You’re lying about facts.
Seriously, this smear campaign is so transparent. And the users on this site buying it up wholesale is sad to see.
Lemmy’s reaction exemplifies:
You are not immune to propaganda
Yeah, it’s almost like they’re all Susan Collin’s campaign staff.
We are so cooked.
Nothing in this article suggests any new evidence. It’s literally a “trust me bro” article. wtf?
Ya but it says what we want to hear
So the vibes checks.
Leftists on Lemmy falling for establishment Democrat smear campaigns is not something I had on my 2025 bingo card
Smear campaigns are when you document someone having a Nazi tatoo for 20 years and never questioning it.
They aren’t “falling” for anything. They are accelerationists actively trying to help the fascists destroy America.
Oh, we have just as many complete idiots on the left as MAGA.
Our idiots just happen to be parroting left-wing talking points instead of right-wing talking points. They can’t articulate the reason why they believe what they believe, but they know which memes are popular and where to press the downvote button.
The fact that CNN and the DNC don’t like him makes me like him even more. ‘Will contribute again soon.
By that logic trump is amazing…
The DNC only pretends to hate Trump since they are also owned by the billionaires. CNN has moved significantly right and hate Trump less than they once did. At the end of the day I’m with Bernie when he pulls his endorsement then I’ll believe it.
Bernie praised trump for securing the border, he can be wrong from time to time, like his endorsement of Tulsi Gabbard.
I can’t find any link to a story where Bernie Sanders endorsed Tulsi Gabbard.
