A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease. One bad apple spoils the bunch. Pick your preferred cliché, but all of them apply to Graham Platner, the lightning rod and standard bearer for Democrats in the race for the Senate in Maine. Much to the consternation of the leftist establishment and the delight of the socialist left, Platner has burst into the national spotlight. But the significance of his candidacy goes well beyond the ever-lengthening rap sheet building against him.
Toxicity on Parade
If you were to create the most toxic portfolio possible for a political candidate, it would come frighteningly close to the life and times of Graham Platner. But whether they have grasped this reality or avoided it, enthusiastic Maine Democrats and the Bernie Sanders crowd have driven a stake through the heart of progressives’ most sacred self-proclaimed principles. Most importantly, it has stripped the Trump-deranged left of the ability to continue its narrative of virtue-signaling platitudes (“No one is above the law” et al.) and vitriolic name-calling (fascist, dictator, etc.) about the president and his followers that they have been shouting from the mountaintop for more than a decade.
Let’s take the shattered narratives one at a time. Remember the one about believing all women? Well, we haven’t seen any Democrats stepping forward to defend former girlfriends who have publicly accused Platner of demeaning and violent behavior, including physical confinement and shoving. Nor do they have anything to say about him sexting with multiple young women shortly after being married in 2023.
Instead, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who acts disgusted that he has to answer for Platner’s multiple sins and abuses, explains it all away by saying the candidate had gone through a “dark period.” Perhaps that is true, but does it then make any sense to run for the highest legislative office in the land after being struck down by a pronounced case of PTSD? These revelations about Platner are devastating to Democrats because they can no longer, with a straight face, proclaim their moral superiority, especially when so few in the party have been willing to speak up or out about the man from Maine. And they can no longer posture as the party that can protect women from the ravages of Donald Trump and sexist Republicans.
Then we come to the most famous tattoo in the country, the one emblazoned on Platner’s chest for almost two decades and then removed after he decided to run for office. It was not only a Nazi symbol, but one arguably even more explosive than the swastika, the “Totenkopf,” a skull-and-crossbones emblem used by Nazi SS death squads. It’s hard to decide which is worse, the fact that he got the tattoo in the first place or his utterly preposterous claim that, for 18 years, he was unaware of what it meant. So, in one fell swoop, Platner has forced his party to remove “Trump is a Nazi/Fascist” from its playbook and called into serious question the ideological direction of a party whose brand was gravely tarnished in 2024. Indeed, the notion that Democrats are trying to moderate their progressive bent is shattered by their acceptance and, in many cases, embrace of the Maine Democratic Senate nominee.
Meanwhile, you would think a man who has come to be identified by his Nazi tattoo would not face the opposite problem at the same time. Never in the recorded annals of modern political history has a candidate for office been legitimately tagged as both a Nazi AND a communist. That is, until Platner came along. In since-deleted Reddit posts from 2020-21, Platner dropped the C-word: “I got older and became a communist,” he wrote, and later described himself as a “vegetable-growing, psychedelics-taking socialist.”
But wait, that’s not all. Platner, an oyster farmer whose only customer is apparently his mother, once wrote that women need to “take some responsibility” to avoid being raped while drinking. Of a fellow service member whose bravery won him a Purple Heart, he said, “Dumb motherf—– didn’t deserve to live.” And in another message, he referred to rural white residents of Maine as “racist” and “stupid.”
Graham Platner — Political Gold for Republicans
Every Republican running for the Senate, or even the House, will strongly consider tying their opponent to the Maine Democrat, whether warranted or not, and many will decide to do it. A simple question will place Democrats all over the country between a rock and a hard place: “Do you support Graham Platner, the man with the Nazi tattoo who called himself a communist?” Yes or no, please, no hedging.
How this guy could have survived the vetting process is a case study in political malpractice. The man and woman who vetted Platner appeared on a recent video and acted amused at being questioned about their background checks on Platner. Were they aware of any or all of these scandals? They said they were not. Were they at least aware of his Nazi tattoo? No on that count, too. So, a man with enough skeletons to fill multiple walk-in closets skated through unscathed. What does that say to the voters about Democrats’ competence?
It’s almost as if Platner has pushed the mute button on the Democrats’ most familiar talking points. Because of the multiple scandalous revelations uncovered, many of which came after he swore there were no more skeletons in his closet beyond the tattoo, Democrats have ceded the moral high ground they claimed to hold. In bowing to a man tarnished by extremism in everything from his beliefs to his violent behavior with women, they might as well hold a funeral for the #MeToo movement. They can no longer even pretend to have curbed their most radical instincts or moderate the party’s prevailing progressive beliefs that were roundly rejected by the voters less than 20 months ago.
Give Platner credit, though, for world-class gaslighting, political jiu-jitsu, and raw chutzpah. Incredibly, he has said, “While I won’t defend things I said in the past, I will just say that if it wasn’t for that entire journey, I would not be who I am today, and I’m incredibly proud of who I am today.” That is quite a self-glorification. But you can bet Democrats intent on winning control of the Senate do not share in Platner’s pride in himself as they come under incessant hostile questioning about the man — and the party’s principles — for the remaining months of the midterm campaign.
