Is it possible to be a WWII buff and not know German insignia? (There was an entire part of the war that did not involve Germany.)
How does serving two tours in two different branches of the military expose one to German insignia?
How does appearing on multiple military podcasts expose one to German insignia?
What’s silly is insisting on what other people must know.
The thing is, pretty much everyone who’s had high school history classes or watched a WWII movie has seen a totenkopf. Most of us just don’t particularly remember them, because why would that one particular symbol stand out above any of the others? But if you see something that matches what you see in the mirror every single day, you’d think it would be a little more memorable.
Hardly that famous. Kinda obscure. But you can be a WWI buff- my buddies and I played games with airfix soldiers and Minitanks, and could spout of stats for those tanks- without knowing what a Totenkopf . We also played wargames later with 1:1200 scale ships, and I could tell you the main armament of most WW2 battleships. So, we were “buffs”.
And his marine buddy backed him up, while the only evidence to the contrary was from a know GOP Operative.
Yep. Or ask those who played Avalon Hill wargames. They might know whole orders of battle- but not what some skull and crossbones was.
But there is a choice- Believe his marine buddy, who served our nation vs a known MAGA operative, who tried to be “anonymous” to start. Note that while Wiki first listed her as “anonymous” now it says-
A former girlfriend and conservative activist interviewed by The New York Times in June 2026 similarly alleged he had called the tattoo “my Totenkopf” years before launching his campaign
and then-
A Marine who got a tattoo matching Platner’s told Zeteo in June 2026 that he and Platner did not deliberately choose Nazi symbols, saying, “We just got matching skull-and-crossbone tattoos that we thought looked cool.”[69]
So I believe the Marine buddy.
Of course, later Platner did know, then sometimes later paid for it to be covered. How long was that gap?
There may have been some people making the argument that he would be a genuine Republican but I and many other’s positions have only been strengthened by this latest revelation. Assume the counterfactual: The rape revelation did not come out during the election but was later discovered by Republican operatives. The Republicans offer him a deal to switch sides in exchange for keeping the lid buried on the information. Do you seriously think Platner would hesitate to sell out his base for his own self-preservation?
The point was always that there were unknown potentially damaging things in his past that could be used for leverage. Our version of the timeline, the career disqualifying thing happened to have been released a week before he couldn’t have been replaced but we still don’t know what other damaging things are still yet unrevealed. That tail risk was one serious people had to take seriously even if they didn’t know the exact shape of what was yet to come, just that they could pattern match on the existing damaging info and how he reacted to it.
It was a reasonable worry because who the hell is Graham Platner? Some guy with extremely limited political experience, unvetteed and unproven. One day he woke up and decided ‘hey, I should be a United States senator.’ It’s absurd. It’s like a rookie in A ball batting .200 and declaring himself the best candidate to play centerfield for the Yankees.
We should be wary of those who try to leap straight to the top. Show us what you got first, pal. Be a mayor, a state rep or senator…win an election. That the Platner Candidacy imploded is no surprise at all. And now he wants to play kingmaker? The guy who brought this on himself? Go pound sand, Platner.
We dodged a bullet, except we were playing Russian roulette.
This guy should be a walking advert for people in Democratic Party spaces of influence that just because 2024 gives you reason to believe that since Trump got away with his dirtbag past being out in the open doesn’t mean the future of politics should be finding a left wing dirtbag and market him as “authentic”. This idea scandals are more appealing to working class people by the Platner surrogates was nauseating, as if it is only higher status people of money who find that stuff off-putting.
That’s the thing … it would be quite a stretch at this point to believe he is reformed and regrets all the Nazi stuff and predatory sexual behavior. But let’s say that for some insane reason, you want to believe he is a good guy now, who has learned from his mistakes and who genuinely cares about his country.
Well, no. Because if he did actually put his country first, especially given his declared political beliefs, he would quietly go away and keep his mouth shut, because that is obviously what is best for the people and certainly for any Democratic hopes of getting the seat away from Collins.
But no, he’s gotta insist on “conditions” for withdrawing. To repeat what BlankSlate said, go pound sand, Platner.
Lyndsey Fifield, the Republican operative who previously claimed Platner grabbed her and locked her in a room without consent is now also adding the detail that he would remove condoms midway during sex without her consent at least six times.
Lyndsey Fifield, who said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015 in D.C. and has previously accused him of physical abuse, said that she told Platner on multiple occasions that he had to wear condoms during sex because she was not on birth control.
“He would pull condoms off,” she said in an interview. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.”
In a statement in response to questions about Fifield’s allegation, Platner’s campaign called the claim “categorically false and politically motivated.” The statement noted Fifield supported now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault before his confirmation.
[…] She estimated that Platner removed condoms without her consent at least six times when they had sex at both of their residences in D.C. during their two-year, on-and-off relationship.
Like Racicot, she has contemporary accounts of telling others about it:
Fifield’s close friend Emily Zanotti confirmed in an interview with The Post that Fifield told her about the incidents shortly after the end of her relationship with Platner.
Having people running for and winning U.S. Senate seats or other major positions who never before held an elective office is nothing new - and the trend is accelerating.
Some actor became governor of California back in the sixties, but had never before held office.I seem to remember a President’s spouse jumping right into the Senate. And of course there’s the guy who became President with zero experience in public office - Donald something.
Aren’t there some sort of bylaws of the Maine Democratic Party that specify what to do when a candidate withdraws?
I had cataract surgery yesterday and am not in a position to do the research to prove this. But I would be very surprised to learn that the rules here include abiding by such an agreement.
I guess that the Maine Democratic state committee can change the rules, such as to have a quick convention. But I cannot imagine the official rules being changed at the last minute to give one person a veto.
I can’t help but think you don’t mean it this way but the phrasing “all the Nazi stuff” implies that there’s more than the tattoo and that the tattoo (that at least one other fellow soldier also got) was done with the knowledge of both of them (the other soldier denies having that knowledge), that it was a Nazi symbol.
I’m not saying that he didn’t know, I’m saying that no one has shown that he knew at the time he got the tattoo.
To say that he did know or must have known requires that one be a mind reader.
I’ll point out that at this time, for me, this is no longer about Platner but is now about people’s epistemic justifications.
Dude, he got 70% of the vote against an incumbent and was leading Collins by a significant margin at one point. You may not care for his style, but clearly the voters did, until these allegations came out. It’s just ridiculous to claim that this was always a gamble with no upside at all for the Democrats.
Sure there was an upside: winning. The downside is the bleeding obvious. When it became public knowledge that he had a totenkopf tattoo, was it a surprise that he had made myriad stupid decisions? So he fooled some of the people for some of the time, but not quite long enough. Good job, I guess.
Untested, unvetted and unproven. A lousy mix for US senate candidate.
I believe her as much as I believe trump or Johnson. Posters here generally dont trust MAGAs, I dont know why we’d start now.
Four of the marines got that tattoo it seems.. And I believe the Marine Buddy- he has no reason to lie. Mind you, even if Plater (who was drunk at the time it seems, that is a weakness) had no idea at that time, it is certain he found out later. But- I refuse to believe a Republican Operative. The evidence is that Platner did not know what it was at the time they got theirs. The story, backed up by a Marine, seems likely- the local marines had got into painting Skulls or skulls & crossbones on stuff- so they got a skull & crossbones tat- when they were at least a little drunk.
Of course later he did know and sometimes after had it covered.
However, the current allegation (from one woman, who is a Democrat by the way) is believable. He needs to drop out.
The nazi stuff was BS from the start. This sexual assault allegation is not BS. Why keep bringing up the old BS stuff, when we have a solid reason to get rid of him now?
Because people keep bringing it up and the conclusions they draw from it calls into question the soundness of their epistemic justifications.
So after a rape accusation the next thing he wants to do is not take no for an answer?
Not well worded on my part. But, without replaying all that has already been covered, doubts have certainly been raised regarding “what did he know and when did he know it?” He could have handled the tattoo situation with more alacrity and forthrightness, it seems to me. That’s all I meant.
Yeah, he surely learned what it was long before he changed it.
That’s been my problem with a lot of the posts about this. They insist on grounds for what someone would have to know without actual justification for that to be the case.
Just piling on to say that Racicot’s account is very credible with contemporaneous support. Platner needs to drop out.