We don’t “know” any such thing and there’s no valid reason to think he’s spent the last 25 years of his life since high school pretending to be a radical leftist so that one day he can get elected to the Senate and bring about the Fourth Reich.
Full disclosure, I still self identify as a Zionist … and at this point I am not so sure I disagree. Don’t want to hijack here but agreed even without invoking AIPAC - he is to the left of the Dem establishment on this and other issues - I worry that some establishment Ds in power worry more about losing party control to the further left progressives than they do about failing to gain control of the Senate. Spoken as one who tracks closer to establishment D centrist positions than to the progressive side.
Last I checked, this board is about fighting ignorance. I don’t think I need to point out that we also like cites 'round here. You’ve been asked repeatedly for cites on your claims. You can keep insisting he lies, but how’s about some real cites that are not unattributed anonymous sources.
Here’s NYTimes interview gift link, and here’s the Pod Save America interview. You can hear from the horse’s mouth what is policies are, what he believes in, how he addresses the tattoo, etc.
Now, I will grant you that since he’s running for office, then he doesn’t have a track record. But he’s been vocal at dozens and dozens of Maine townhalls, he goes on pretty much any podcast that will have him.
“NO WAR!”: Watch 18-Year-Old Graham Platner Get Kicked Out Of Bush Rally
And two years after that he enlisted in the Army. What explains the change of heart? We know, because he told us in his Reddit posts - because he enjoys killing people. Clearly that’s more important to him than any anti-war principle.
Is it possible that some people - possibly including most elected Democrats and most people who vote for them - genuinely believe that mainstream liberalism is the correct governing philosophy, and dislike leftism because it’s a stew of genuinely evil ideas and half-baked sloganeering, not because they are “afraid of losing power”?
And we all know that people NEVER shitpost on Reddit! No sir, Reddit is a serious website for serious people where every word spoken is the unvarnished truth of what they believe in their heart of hearts.
Let’s look at what he said, say, OUTSIDE the website for memes and stupid nonsense;
Asked why he served in the Iraq War after protesting it, Platner said, “I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway.”
Just a point of order: Just because you oppose one, or more, wars does not make you anti-war on principle.
The accusation that American leftists are anti-war on principle is a Right wing calumny older than I am.
Ahh there’s some baggage we will not see unpacked in this, or I fear any, thread.
And other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
So, you got nothing too.
“No war!” He cried shortly before signing up for a war vecause he, quote, “wanted to have an adventure and kill some people”.
Consistency (like fidelity) appears to be beyond him.
Imagine that - an 18-year-old with complex and conflicted motivations in life.
Good thing nobody on this board was ever young.
This whole thing is veering into “Obama is a secret Muslim” territory.
I didn’t realize that Obama had a fundamentalist Islamic tattoo for twenty years that he lied about. With that context in mind, I agree, I understand why people thought he was a Muslim.
What’s that? He didn’t have such a tattoo? Wow, I guess it’s not at all the same thing, huh?
People assumed that Obama was a Muslim because he was black and his middle name was Hussein. If the evidence for Platner stopped at him being white and having a German middle name, that would be a valid comparison.
I’m not taking an unsubstantiated, one-sided recollection of a conversation from 15 years ago from an unidentified source as proof that he “lied” about not knowing the tattoo he got as a way of bonding with his Marine buddies was also a semi-obscure German military symbol from the 19th century that was appropriated by the Nazis, especially considering that there are American military units (including Marine units) today that use similar iconography.
…and he had a Muslim stepfather, spent a considerable chunk of his childhood in a Muslim majority country, and once accidentally said “my Muslim faith” in an interview when he meant to say “Christian”.
By the standard being applied to Platner, that’s incontrovertible proof.
Even he doesn’t deny that it’s a Totenkopf, this line of defense is baffling to me.
Anyways, it’s all moot - we will see what drops about him in October.
He knows what it is NOW. Did he know what it was when he was a drunk 23-year-old jarhead deciding to get matching tattoos with his buddies? Probably not. Did he know Recon battalions use a death’s head in their livery? Almost certainly.
Yes, but that’s not the question. Did he get it because it was a totenkopf (in military use since the 17 fucking hundreds) or did he get it because it was THE Totenkoph?
That’s the question and it’s answer requires either actual evidence, which has not been presented, or mind reading, which seems to be the popular choice.
What’s next, the stupid Reddit thread, and it’s useless photo again? The one that would be a perfect picture for Graham’s new children’s book Where’s Waldo the Totenkopf?
The two are mutually compatible. If I believe I have a correct governing philosophy I would be be very afraid of losing power, in particular of having the only choices both be ones I believe are poor ones.
But no I don’t think mainstream liberalism (include me in the group) dislikes leftism; definitely does not think that it is a slew of evil ideas (that skew is on display in power now); or any such nonsense.
He’s shown us that he’s an idiot. But he hasn’t shown us how he’d vote in the Senate.
I’m not splitting any hairs. I’m refuting this:
So I’m agreeing with you: when I originally said “he told people” upthread, there was more than “one anonymous person” referred to.
Please consider that this person is in the running to be a United States Senator. Yes, you can probably come up with a laundry list of excuses why it’s OK to be a shitposter and it’s OK to “accidentally” get a Nazi tattoo because he’s kind of dumb and it’s OK that he just had the one DUI and there might be a really good reason he locked his girlfriend up, and it’s not technically in kidnapping in every state, and sure maybe he said he opposed war and then ran off to sign up for it after deciding war is cool because 18-year-olds are complicated.
Maybe there actually are good excuses for all of that stuff, but a US Senator shouldn’t need that many excuses for their behavior, and it’s a very strong signal that he’d spend a lot of his time in office selling a lot more excuses for sketchy past and future behavior.
This is just not a horse you bet on. This is a Fetterman, a Sinema, a Manchin in waiting. All he needs is that 6-year term in office to insulate him from any real consequences of his actions. I don’t think he can reliably be presumed an improvement on Susan Collins.
The only reason to vote for him is to purge Republicans’ incumbent advantage from Maine, making that seat more competitive. But if he decides to govern more like a Republican then that’s also kind of worse, because not only do you get a Republican-lite, it signals that this kind of thing is OK for Democrat politicians, and we’ll see more of these guys, not less.
Yes there’s a laundry list of excuses for him, but we should be wanting more from a US Senator than a list of excuses as to why they’re not as bad as they look.