# Are there any reasons to reject Graham Platner in Maine (campaign suspended July 8, 2026) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 4, 2026, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179 "2026-03-04T03:50:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 63
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1243 "2026-06-12T10:17:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Seriously? That’s the SS cap symbol. You don’t need to have studied World War Two, you need to be someone who had ever watched movies and television, anything from Schindler’s List to fucking Mitchell and Webb. Your confidence that everyone knows this symbol helps me understand some of your posts in this thread. Trust: no, everyone doesn’t know this symbol. In addition to @puzzlegal, I’d never heard of it before. I’m not a WWII buff, but I’m also not a complete ignoramus when it comes to history; nevertheless, I know of the swastika, the SS lightning bolts, and vaguely something about an iron eagle maybe? I certainly couldn’t identify the eagle. Skull and crossbones as a Nazi symbol sounds plausible to me, but until this thread I’d never thought about totenkopf, much less knew confidently what one looks like. You seem disgusted with people who “pretend” to believe Platner. But it’s completely plausible to me that like 90% of people or more don’t know totenkopfs, and that Platner and the rest of his unit were in that group. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1244 "2026-06-12T10:31:12Z")
Count me also as one who never heard the word before, and if presented it in isolation would not have thought Nazi symbol. Lots of Sundays watching “The World at War” with my dad, have seen many WW2 movies … it never made an impression on me that I recalled it. To me it is definitely obscure as a symbol. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1245 "2026-06-12T11:48:21Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Trust: no, everyone doesn’t know this symbol Include me among the people who can’t tell one skull and bones from another. Also, quite a while ago I posted in this thread about people who thought Nazis were over, no more a current danger than pirates, who didn’t think any more of Nazi symbols than they would of a kid in a pirate costume. They were wrong, of course; but they weren’t Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1246 "2026-06-12T12:03:17Z")
Apparently we’re to believe that while most people struggle to see what the tattoo is with foreknowledge, underage girls know it on sight. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1247 "2026-06-12T12:10:12Z")
If ever there was a group with outsized knowledge of 80-year-old Nazi iconography, it’s teenage girls! Not all the older Jewish relatives at his sister-in-law’s wedding, none of them would recognize it. Nope it’s the 13 to 18 year-old set. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1248 "2026-06-12T12:33:05Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Include me among the people who can’t tell one skull and bones from another. I finally looked it up. I would have thought it was a pirate symbol, and apparently it was in use by the German army for decades. I definitely wouldn’t recognize it as a Nazi symbol, but more of a “look what a badass I am with my skull and crossbones!” thing. I associate the two pointy S thing with the SS, from movies and playing Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple ][. Anyway, it’s up to Maine now, to either vote for someone who seems to have some problems in his history or someone who supports actual homophobic, bigoted, fascist-wannabe Christian Nationalist white supremacists. Woo, tough call. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1249 "2026-06-12T12:38:43Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I finally looked it up. I would have thought it was a pirate symbol, and apparently it was in use by the German army for decades. I definitely wouldn’t recognize it as a Nazi symbol, but more of a “look what a badass I am with my skull and crossbones!” thing. [And certainly not something that the U.S. Marines would ever have as one of their symbols.](https://www.usmcmuseum.com/blog/archives/10-2021) ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1250 "2026-06-12T13:29:39Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The whole thing is a delightful read, because Valente knows her way around a fucking sentence. I agree, thanks for sharing it. She’s an evocative and funny writer. ---
**Author:** ![Calder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Calder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calder)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1251 "2026-06-12T16:46:06Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You seem disgusted with people who “pretend” to believe Platner. But it’s completely plausible to me that like 90% of people or more don’t know totenkopfs, and that Platner and the rest of his unit were in that group. Sure, most people don’t know what a Totenkopf is. But Platner isn’t ‘most people.’ He’s a self‑proclaimed WWII buff with a long posting history in military forums — including at least one thread where he discussed the Totenkopf himself. The idea that _that_ guy somehow didn’t know what he had tattooed for 20 years is not just implausible, it’s silly. I don’t want to lean on this too hard, but it’s worth saying: if Platner were a Republican, nobody here would believe his story. A _Totenkopf_ is a Nazi symbol. Full stop. The sudden willingness to entertain an implausible “I didn’t know” story seems driven more by party alignment than by the facts. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1252 "2026-06-12T16:47:42Z")
Other than the Totenkopf, what is the evidence that Platner is a Nazi? ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1253 "2026-06-12T16:57:21Z")
Or members of a Yale Secret Society, Skull and Bones Did the Wolfs Head Society got their emblem from Nazi imagery too? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1254 "2026-06-12T17:10:50Z")
> [@Calder](#): > > He’s a self‑proclaimed WWII buff with a long posting history in military forums… I’ve known too many “self described WWII buffs” to believe that label has any particular correlation with knowing anything about WWII. > [@Calder](#): > > I don’t want to lean on this too hard, but it’s worth saying: if Platner were a Republican, nobody here would believe his story. A _Totenkopf_ is a Nazi symbol. Full stop. The sudden willingness to entertain an implausible “I didn’t know” story seems driven more by party alignment than by the facts. You’re not wholly wrong, but the thing that’s keeping the argument over Platner alive is the disconnect between his stated political values, and the values implied by the tattoo. If he were running as a Republican, this disconnect would not be nearly so striking. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1255 "2026-06-12T17:13:10Z")
> [@Calder](#): > > I don’t want to lean on this too hard, but it’s worth saying: if Platner were a Republican, nobody here would believe his story. A _Totenkopf_ is a Nazi symbol. Full stop. The sudden willingness to entertain an implausible “I didn’t know” story seems driven more by party alignment than by the facts. I for one absolutely would (assuming there was nothing else in his history to suggest Nazi sympathies, of course). The alternative, that he was a Nazi, but he didn’t say Nazi things or associate with other Nazis because he didn’t want people to know he was a Nazi, but he still got a prominent Nazi tattoo, is obviously highly implausible. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1256 "2026-06-12T18:09:22Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’ve known too many “self described WWII buffs” to believe that label has any particular correlation with knowing anything about WWII. Yeah, maybe his thing was tanks or battleships or something. Back when I was young we had Roco Minitanks and we had battles with them. We knew quite a bit about the tank miniatures we had that Roco sold. You could call us WW2 Buffs. We knew squat about aircraft, infantry, etc, except from Avalon Hill- the infantry had a “X” on the little cardboard counters. > [@Calder](#): > > I don’t want to lean on this too hard, but it’s worth saying: if Platner were a Republican, nobody here would believe his story. A _Totenkopf_ is a Nazi symbol. Maybe, but if he was a MAGA he’d be a bigot, so that makes sense. However, Platner is NOT a bogot. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1257 "2026-06-12T19:17:30Z")
> [@Calder](#): > > Sure, most people don’t know what a Totenkopf is. But Platner isn’t ‘most people.’ He’s a self‑proclaimed WWII buff with a long posting history in military forums — including at least one thread where he discussed the Totenkopf himself. The idea that _that_ guy somehow didn’t know what he had tattooed for 20 years is not just implausible, it’s silly. We have been over that Reddit thread and over. I won’t repeat what I said, except for the conclusion, which is that I find it extremely unpersuasive. Scroll up if you’re curious for my reasons. As for the accusation of hypocrisy, that I would think differently about this if he were a republican, I would just say that I might know my own mind better than you know mine. That accusation is untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1258 "2026-06-12T19:22:12Z")
That is excellent. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was specifically written for the participants in this thread. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1259 "2026-06-12T19:32:05Z")
If he were a maga republican, there _would_ be corroborating evidence that he has Nazi sympathies. If he were a “party of Lincoln and big business” republican, we might still be having this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1260 "2026-06-12T22:23:21Z")
This is entertaining - > **[Fetterman: Graham Platner is a ‘bona fide dirtbag’ — NBC News](https://apple.news/AC4ibEs-lR1WbWlVGy8dT8w)** > > Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joins Meet the Press NOW to tout the Democratic candidates in the 2026 Senate races with the exception of Graham Platner (D-Maine) who he calls a “bona fide dirtbag” and a “communist.” Sen. Fetterman also reacts to the... Platner first brought up at about 1:40 but the interviewer has to return to as he wanders a bit. I get the subtle sense that these two do NOT like each other. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2026, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1261 "2026-06-13T03:10:58Z")
I just want to add that having this public mutual disgust with each other _helps_ Platner significantly. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2026, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179/1262 "2026-06-13T03:42:42Z")
Holy crap, Fetterman is unhinged. If one were a conspiracy theorist, Fetterman is the kinda trojan horse. He praises a lot of Dems, but Platner is a communist. Fetterman seems to be playing the game of trumpeting enough Dem stuff, but saving his powder for where it matters for the Republicans. In this case, we all know Maine is a pivotal battleground, so talking good stuff about Alaska and other races, and dropping the hammer on Maine. At least what I heard, he was casting doubt on Talarico in a back handed complementary dog whistle way with the veganism and pronouns. Those in this thread that think Platner will go full trojan horse republican on day one, what is your take on Fetterman? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179.md?page=62) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-reasons-to-reject-graham-platner-in-maine-campaign-suspended-july-8-2026/1028179.md?page=64)