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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve known too many “self described WWII buffs” to believe that label has any particular correlation with knowing anything about WWII.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe, but if he was a MAGA he’d be a bigot, so that makes sense. However, Platner is NOT a bogot.
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.
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.
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?
