Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner says his six months in Afghanistan in 2018 as a State Department security contractor revealed how America’s wars had become “a corporate money-grab.” He clarified he never worked for Erik Prince’s Blackwater but for a hedge-fund-owned successor that inherited its State Department contracts. “They used guys like me with these backgrounds to meet the contract requirements so they could pay us bare minimum and walk away with the balance.”
Platner said his job mostly involved driving for the U.S. ambassador’s security team. “We were barely leaving the Green Zone… All I did was lift weights and play video games. I got huge and I played a lot of Far Cry,” he said.
He quit after six months and went home to farm oysters.
I just don’t buy the tattoo angle he’s selling. Either he’s a cryptofascist or a drunken idiot, either case not fit for office.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy. There’s the distinct possibility he WAS a drunken idiot and no longer is.
I’ve got no skin in the game here, but to compare those options:
He quits working in the lucrative military industrial complex to become a fascist sleeper agent (because if he didn’t know in advance his reddit history wouldn’t make any sense). So he spends the better part of a decade making functionally anonamous reddit posts on lefty and socialist subs while oyster farming (presumably) to build credibility as a lefty… In Maine… but curiously he does so while not building any sort of real political capital or credibility. After 7 years the Democrats are weak, he activates with bonafides to flank the party from the left and emerge as a working class fighter. He decides not to get rid of the tattoo that could expose him to the public as a fascist (perhaps because he needs to secretly maintain his fascist bonafides).
He’s authentic, but as a young guy in the service, he gets shit faced and makes a terrible decision in a tattoo shop. Accepting this theory does require one to believe that Platner had not committed the first 10 pages of the ADL hate symbol database to memory.
Occams razor makes a pretty clear case here.
Still, I would be concerned about getting Fetterman’d if I were a Maine voter. Platner comes with some baggage and requires a good bit of faith. I also don’t think there are any clearly, better options for voters in Maine.
Agreed. It doesn’t have to be this big conversation about “letting people change”. That’s fine for a personal friend I’m trying to help grow. We’re talking about a politician that will influence the lives of thousands to millions of people. Yeah. I’ll have a higher standard and much more doubt. It’s that simple.
There’s no evidence of either.
His own claim is that he got the tattoo while drunk, which is idiotic. I decline to pretend with you that the tattoo is not its own evidence of cryptofascism.
I’ve heard plenty of drunken stories of people getting a tattoo while intoxicated.
Even buzzfeed has an article on all the dumb tattoos people got when they were drunk.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/sydrobinson1/drunk-tattoos-thatll-make-you-smile-and-cringe
i dont think ‘lots of other people are drunken idiots too’ is quite the argument you were looking for
That’s right because it isn’t
I’ve been drunk as fuck for most weekends of my life. Never once did I find myself getting a Nazi tattoo to celebrate my service killing brown people in Iraq. Idk. Maybe have a higher standard for a representative than you would some random reddit comment?
Like, this isn’t a personal friend you’re trying to help explain the personal struggles of to another friend. This is a representative that will influence the lives of thousands to potentially millions of people. Maybe have a higher standard for them to reach than you would a drunk idiot in a bar.
That’s why he’s a “pass” for me. I don’t live in Maine. I don’t have any interest in helping or promoting him. Maybe if I was in Maine I’d have a bit more patience.
But I am not gonna waste my time defending or promoting a dude with a Nazi tattoo just because he said “fight the oligarchs” like it’s a copy pasta from Sanders to get voters.
He said he had no idea it was Nazi symbolism. No one in his family or friends made him aware of it either. I was also unaware of it.
You being stupid is ok with me. You’re not running as a politician.
Edit: I’m sorry. Maybe the average person is just really stupid. But it’s literally the second symbol listed on the Nazi Symbolism Wikipedia. First is the Swastika. Is the average person really that ignorant of history?
Do you want to take that back or do you want me to make a comment about your ADHD?
Like, you’re telling me if you saw a guy with that tattoo in the gym the first thing that comes to mind is not “damn, that looks like some Nazi shit”?
Like, I’m not saying people need to know the exact symbol and name. But, come on, you watch one WW2 documentary and you should be able to put that together. That shit was all over.
Except the fucking totenkopf tattooed on his chest