r/moderatepolitics • u/TheWyldMan • 2d ago
News Article Graham Platner’s Wife Flagged Sexually Explicit Texts to His Senate Campaign
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/graham-platners-wife-flagged-sexually-explicit-texts-to-his-senate-campaign-628ec832?mod=e2tw8
u/wmtr22 1d ago
I grew up in Maine all of my family are Mainers. I left years ago for a better opportunity my daughter went to college in Maine and just moved to New Hampshire for a better job. Maine is an odd state many conservative Dems. Liberal reps. I have stated before I think the election will be decided by moderate women in southern Maine. So this sexting might hurt more because of who he needs to vote for him
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u/ArtanistheMantis 2d ago
Had a Nazi tattoo, called himself a communist in 2021, mocked a purple heart recipient saying the "dumb motherfucker didn't deserve to live", and now we find out he's unfaithful with his wife. There was really no one better to pick in the Maine primary than this guy?
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u/airforceCOT 2d ago edited 2d ago
There was, but it seems Platner and his many controversies resonated more with the base and was more relatable so they picked him.
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u/Ruffles98 2d ago edited 2d ago
Platner is the result of Trump's America. Scandal after scandal from the Trump administration and people have been desensitized. The average Maine voter will be scrolling, see this headline, and feel nothing. The article is paywalled so they won't read it.
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u/Rysilk 2d ago
Jesus. Everything is trumps fault. Now even bad democrats aren’t democrats fault but trumps fault. I stubbed my toe this morning I guess that was trumps fault too
Let me ask a question. At what point does one take responsibility for their own actions?
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u/andygchicago 1d ago
It’s not that it’s Trumps fault so much as it is Trump tearing up the playbook. It’s going to be rocky until a new standard is set. If you go back, it seems like there’s always one person that rewrites politics every 50-60 years
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u/Rollen73 2d ago
I think blaming Trump is somewhat overdone but the utter destruction of political norms in this country is very much trumps fault. Before Trump politicians had way more stringent standards on how they were supposed to act.
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u/Bullet_Jesus There is no center 2d ago
"Grab 'em by the pussy" would have destroyed a prior political candidate. At the time people thought this would doom Trump in the close race 2016 was shaping up to be. Then he won, served a term, lost and then won again.
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u/Plastastic Social Democrat 2d ago
At the time people thought this would doom Trump in the close race 2016 was shaping up to be.
Crazy how so many people seemed to drop Trump only to pick him back up when he skated through the whole thing.
I think that's why Giuliani is so close with Trump, he never jumped ship even in the campaign's darkest days.
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u/Sckaledoom 2d ago
Yeah, at least once a week they’ve had a scandal that would sink any other admin. Instead they get treated like gold.
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u/TeamPencilDog 2d ago
I'm an independent, not a Democrat nor Republican.
But Trump is POTUS. He's the leader. You can't really say that his actions don't have an effect on how the populace sees politics. Politics is much different than "stubbing your toe."
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u/CreativeCucumber17 2d ago
This is especially true when he's been in politics for a decade plus now. There's a whole generation of kids that have been raised thinking this style of politics is normal, and unfortunately there are no signs that it's going away.
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u/Xanto97 Elephant and the Rider 2d ago
Meh, We should all take responsibility for our own actions. But it’s just sort of comical for conservatives to look down on platner for x controversies after years of trump’s. Paxton has a ton of controversies and just won his primary too.
The environment has changed as a result of trump.
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u/K20BB5 2d ago
Why are you holding redditors to higher standards than the President of the United States? It's truly pathetic
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u/Solarwinds-123 2d ago
Well a Redditor is running for a Senate seat in Maine, so it's kinda relevant.
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u/Adventurous-Fact-523 1d ago
He has set a precedent of politicans getting away with awful stuff. If trump and Republicanss get low so will Democrats
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u/pabloivan57 1d ago
Because it is true, his level of scandal truly desensitized the country. This is nothing, like absolutely nothing compared to the Epstein files, yet there he is in power...
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u/julius_sphincter 1d ago
Now even bad democrats aren’t democrats fault but trumps fault. I stubbed my toe this morning I guess that was trumps fault too
Let me ask a question. At what point does one take responsibility for their own actions?
This is hilarious because at this point I regularly see people that voted for Trump in 2024 that now clearly aren't happy with how things are going and say "well, the Democrats shouldn't have ran such a shitty candidate"
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u/Ruffles98 2d ago edited 2d ago
Platner's behavior isn't Trump's fault. Democratic voters not caring about Platner's behavior, is Trump's fault. He lowered the standards for politicians in the country.
Trump posted an AI video of himself flying over protesters and dropped poop on them. This kind of behavior has an effect on the entire country's psyche.
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u/longlosthall 2d ago
This. I'm not convinced his shortcomings weren't the reason he was approached to run. If I were the Democratic Party I would be doing experiments like this with flawed outsiders. The responses to Platner on the left/right so far have been almost a perfect inverse of what they were to Trump in 2015 so I'll be interested to see how things shake out.
Republican and independent Trump voters, you said loudly and proudly in 2015 and 2023 that this is what you want from politicians.
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u/Trick-Persimmon-6642 2d ago
There were no candidates speaking to the problems of Mainers and Americans more broadly. The Democratic Party tried to push a women who is 78 and would only serve one term. It’s a party of geriatrics and they wonder why there is no excitement from the base, we don’t need more politicians from a bygone bipartisan era, we need politicians who understands the Republicans are a threat to our country and will fight tooth and nail to save it
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u/powderedlemonade 2d ago
This texting incident occurred barely 1 year ago!!! Didn't he know he was running for senate then? What was he thinking? Also, doing this to your wife only THREE YEARS INTO THE MARRIAGE!?! Poor character.
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u/Powerful-Persimmon87 2d ago edited 2d ago
People are always like omg his imperfections make him so real and authentic. But idk, this guy authentically fails all my moral metrics for just regular people —let alone political leaders. As a happily married woman to a wonderful man, I have little respect for men who disrespect their wives like this (and vice versa). And while I think all people are deserving of second chances, everything I know about this man tells me that this is who he really is. They’ve only been married since 2023, too! It’s such a low bar to clear… though higher than not having and walking around with a Nazi tattoo for 20 years.
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u/Tacklinggnome87 1d ago edited 1d ago
It will never cease to be funny that in the name of fighting fascism led a misogynist, the Democrats have gone all in on misogynist with a nazi tattoo.
"God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and [Susan Collins]"
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
The guy with a Nazi death squad tattoo has a poor moral compass? I'm shocked.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/WD40ContactCleaner Maximum Malarkey 2d ago
There’s a saying in Germany. If there’s a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis.
😏
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u/joy_of_division 2d ago
Funny how we don't see that phrase tossed around anymore
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u/AresBloodwrath Maximum Malarkey 2d ago
I remember a lot of liberals saying it about Elon when it was convenient for them. They dropped that the moment it applied to them.
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u/decrpt 2d ago
They still say it. It was said about Elon because Elon was doing things like replying to someone suggesting that Hitler was right because "Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them" by saying "you have said the actual truth."
It doesn't apply in the context of Platner because the tattoo is the only point of contention here. He's not actually doing anything, or associating with anyone, that would make it relevant.
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u/CloudApprehensive322 2d ago
Elon has retweeted and endorsed great replacement theory/white supremacy talking points on dozens of occasions. Platner drunkenly got a bad tattoo of a skull without knowing the historical context while in Europe - not the same thing.
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u/dragonmp93 2d ago
Eh, Stephen Miller keeps quoting Hitler's speeches, if you don't remember.
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u/shacksrus 2d ago
Elon Roman salutes and gets on Twitter calling for work camps for people he considers "animals". Not to mention the dozen children by different women including his employees. The fbi interviewed a woman who said trump raped her when she was 13. Paxton cheated on his wife with the employee of the real estate magnate he was committing fraud with. His wife them divorced him on "biblical grounds"
Yet we're supposed care about "texts"?
Seems hypocritical.
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u/rchive 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think there's a reason that's a German phrase and not an American one. Guilt by association is pretty regressive. I certainly would support people disassociating from literal nazis, but refusal to do so obviously doesn't automatically make a person also a nazi.
Edit: missing words
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u/adreamofhodor 2d ago
Really? If one of my buddies was hanging out with a Nazi, I’d certainly view them differently.
Also, it’s funny you say it’s a German phrase and not an American one, because I’m fairly confident that was said ironically - this particular phrase was heavily used by the left for many years.17
u/Gnagus 2d ago
This whole thread is people wondering why the left would be reconsidering strict moral purity standards after years of being told by the center and right that those same standards were why they kept losing to someone with none.
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u/adreamofhodor 2d ago
I’m not wondering. It’s a natural response to Trump winning twice and seeing the media environment we’re in.
I’m lamenting, if anything. I preferred when Nazi tattoos and crusader iconography were taboo.13
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
It's still taboo, which is why he had no problem covering it up after being made aware of the meaning.
If he only did it because of bad PR, then why there are zero quotes of him praising Nazis or hating Jewish people in the past? They shouldn't be hard to find if he knowingly had a Nazi tattoo that was commonly recognized, since that would mean not being shy about his beliefs.
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u/rchive 2d ago
I just think it's more nuanced than that. Shunning people as soon as they start believing something we find gross doesn't actually help anything. It just only allows them to socialize with other people like them and reinforces the bad belief.
I have heard the phrase in the US, as well. I just went with the claim for my own purposes.
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u/luvsads 2d ago
Yes, really. It's regressive because it removes all nuance and context. If there are 10 people sitting at a table with 1 Nazi and those 10 are talking to the Nazi in an attempt to make them realize Nazism is bad, are there really 11 Nazis at the table?
There are definitely people on the American left who try to use this saying. It's dumb af, though.
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u/neuronexmachina 2d ago
Has anyone who's ever known him and/or served with him ever claimed he sympathized with Nazis or acted like one? I imagine there would be at least a few politically-opposed former acquaintances. Then again, maybe they're just waiting for October.
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u/bettercaust 2d ago
It's actually a phrase of unclear origin but likely "fascists" rather then Nazis specifically due to it being traced to anti-fascists.
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u/NacreousFink 2d ago
I think the nazi tattoo and the fact that he doesn't admit what happened to the Armenians was a genocide is worse, but this ain't good either.
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u/raouldukehst 2d ago
And saying a wounded vet deserved to die. Trumps greatest power is still convincing his enemies to behave like him.
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u/Ordinary_Team_4214 Humanist 2d ago
He called it a genocide in the same comment you’re talking about.
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u/Teganfff Centrist Democrat 2d ago
Example 7,439 of why Democrats/people on the left need to stop purity testing and infighting.
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u/ferbje 2d ago
What does him having a Nazi tattoo and cheating on his wife have to do with left wing infighting
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u/airforceCOT 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think he’s annoyed that some Democrats are hesitant about supporting a guy who’s sported a Holocaust symbol on his chest, stated that he wished a Purple Heart recipient would have died, said that women who dress provocatively asked to be raped, cheated on his wife, bragged about masturbating in porta potties, and reposts Twitter content from podcasters who think Jews are evil.
To some folks, this is unnecessary infighting at a time when Democrats need to stick together.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 2d ago edited 2d ago
and reposts Twitter content from podcasters who think Jews are evil
Every time this is mentioned, I shall point out that several high ranking Republicans, some of them part of the current administration, have been on said podcaster's podcast. Several times.
And, every time, I will ask: What is worse? Reposting a tweet from that guy and immediately deleting it upon finding out about the guy's history, or repeatedly going on the guy's podcast while agreeing with him about most things he says?
Still waiting for an answer to this question to this day.
said that women who dress provocatively asked to be raped
That meanwhile - as far as I can tell - is outright untruthful. He simply didn't say that. He said something pretty bad and equally condemnable, but he didn't say that.
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u/TP-BANDIT77 2d ago
"Rape is a real thing, if you're so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you'd think you might not get blacked out f----- up around people you aren't comfortable with."
Woof
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u/PairOk7940 21h ago
Yup, dumb guys day dumb stuff ehen theyvare young dumb snd mad. As a woman and a Progressive Im more interested in how he openly talks about this thinking and its stupidity than the fact that he said it. Becauae honestly a lot of well meaning liberal men think this way too. They aont say it out loud so its hard to correct. Liberal men are sexist too, and often the worst at hearing that to be quite frank.
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 2d ago
it's crazy that two of my friends' Teslas were keyed because Musk did a hand-to-heart motion, but a literal SS tattoo seems to a-ok
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u/scottstots6 2d ago
If you still don’t think Musk did that motion intentionally, I have a bridge to sell you.
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u/KarlsReddit 2d ago
If I was in Maine I'd vote for him. But I hate this lazy argument. Why do we keep having to make huge compromises on candidates. There isn't anyone else qualified? I'm not the DNC. But if that money can't find anyone else decent to boost them there needs to be better leadership.
Why should we stop caring if our elected officials don't lie, cheat, get nazi tattoos etc.? This is the absolute bare minimum but you come in and try and guilt people for caring about things that are fundementally representative of human decency.
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u/sgtabn173 Ask me about my TDS 2d ago
I’m beginning to really suspect the purity tests and infighting are oftentimes instigated by people outside the party. Dude has the support of dems in Maine, far as I can tell. So where is the infighting originating? Who benefits from the dems purity tests?
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u/halfar 2d ago
The story was leaked by his former campaign manager, Genevieve McDonald, who left his campaign when Mills announced her run, because she's a big supporter of Mills, and has been a very loud and active voice against Platner ever since.
So in this case, it's very explicitly coming from a moderate democrat trying to sink another democrat's campaign.
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
Weird way to say she quit after Gus Reddit account was discovered and she said she couldn’t represent him after his comments
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u/Chrispanic 2d ago
It's a bit of both. Dems/dem leaning left voters push moral values with militism.
This is an obvious weakness, and the right/Repubs will and do exploit it.
There are a lot of left, liberal, whatever label people who vote Dem, that aren't Democrats that push these standards. There are also some Dems/Progressives that also push this, and Centrist whatever Dems that keep their mouths shut. Hence infighting.
Then Republicans laugh all the way to the bank...
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u/airforceCOT 2d ago
There are a lot of left, liberal, whatever label people who vote Dem, that aren't Democrats
This. Are we forgetting that independents and undecideds exist? And clearly there are a lot of them in Maine because they always vote Democrat in presidential elections but have reelected Collins three times?
The “vote blue no matter who or you’re an asshole traitor!” argument isn’t going to work with these people.
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
purity testing
This isn't purity testing. This is common sense.
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u/blewpah 2d ago
Okay so do you oppose Ken Paxton or Trump because of their known infidelities?
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u/Gnagus 2d ago
This is an interesting point, why are there so many Plattner posts but not nearly as many about Paxton or Cory Mills?
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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 2d ago
Reddit leans left and talks more about things relating to the left and center left. You're not going to find redditors defending Paxton outside of a handful of dedicated conservative subs.
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u/Sierren 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m just going to touch on the elephant in the room and bring up the tattoo. I definitely see a regular layman not knowing the difference between that and a Jolly Roger, but not someone who’s read into WWII at all. Haven’t people seen the famous “Are we the baddies?” skit? It’s all about this exact symbol.
That all said, I don’t care too much about him having the tattoo or not. He could have known or could have not, but in either case I agree with the many people who have said that people make mistakes and should be able to learn from them. I don’t think the tat is disqualifying on its face. My bigger issue is the all the progressives who have dropped all pretense around purity testing. Since when has the standard been “live and learn” for the left wing? These are same people who will still defend the ridiculous notion that the OK symbol is actually a dog whistle. Does no one else remember the hysterical panic of the 2010s? This would have never flied even 5 years ago.
I’ve seen people say “well he may have a really bad tattoo, but judging from his comments he’s not an actual Nazi”. Fair, but don’t people remember how for the past decade or so even appearing far-right was a major taboo? It wasn’t about them being a Nazi or not, because they almost never were, it was all about appearance then, so why the shift? Other than political expediency of course.
If progressives are learning from their mistakes and actually letting people grow now, then I’m glad to have progs come around. But I’m not holding my breath. This all seems to me to be progressives begging for a level of leniency they’d never give someone an inch to the right of them. I don’t see why we should give them that unless it comes with the understanding that the hyper purity testing of the past decade is over and dead. What are the chances that in a year or two some activist journalist is going to try to smear some right wing politician with something far more spurious? They simply can’t go back to that behavior after defending this guy.
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u/Aggravating-Act-1043 1d ago
After the primary the real accusations will come out I hope I'm wrong but this is usually how this goes
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u/SeasonsGone 2d ago
Doubtful this will matter… and it would be disappointing if this is what mattered to people more than the accidental Nazi tattoo actually.
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
It might make the Nazi tattoo matter more now that he's a documented liar and deceiver.
The "I didn't know for 18 years" was already a bit thin.
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u/likeitis121 2d ago
I don't think these things matter as much in the age of Trump, because nothing he's done rises up to what Trump has said/done.
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u/luvsads 2d ago
I feel like it would be pretty unsurprising/understandable if an "accidental Nazi tattoo" was less controversial than "intentional adultery"
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u/ArtanistheMantis 2d ago
Alright, but that's only if you buy that line that it was an accidental Nazi tattoo and not an "accidental" Nazi tattoo. Considering he had it for nearly 20 years and didn't get it covered up until it became a scandal, I'm a bit skeptical he was completely in the dark that entire time.
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u/ImmediateArachnid935 2d ago
A statement released by the Platner campaign on Gertner's behalf indicates the couple feels their marriage is "stronger than ever before" despite struggling with fertility, which they revealed earlier this year.
In the statement, Gertner also says she and Platner went to marriage counseling. She wrote:
“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend. In the months since, I have had to watch as she spread malicious gossip to anyone who would take her call. I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives – the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind – and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.
It is no secret that Graham and I have struggled on our fertility journey. We did the hard work that marriage requires. We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy. And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built. Our marriage today is stronger than ever before.
I know who Graham is. I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t."
Platner has not yet publicly addressed the WSJ article himself, but he did post a video statement from Gertner on his social media pages.
In that video, she said, "I don't want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage."
She and Platner have been married since 2023.
She went on to express frustration that the article is focused on their relationship instead of her husband's campaign. He is running for the Democratic nomination in the U.S. Senate Race against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.
Maine's Total Coverage has reached out to her office, but they have not yet responded.
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u/biglyorbigleague 2d ago
Maine Democrats: How hard is it to find someone to run for this office who isn’t either eighty years old or all of this? There had to have been a better option somewhere.
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u/ViskerRatio 2d ago
It's amazing how many people are still trying to defend this guy. Listen, I haven't lived a spotless life. But I've never 'accidentally' gotten a Nazi tattoo and I've never joined a social media platform most noted for its connections to pedophilia. These aren't things that I've even been tempted to do.
Chances are you could walk into the Maine State Legislature, pick a Democrat at random, and they'd be a better candidate than this doofus.
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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 2d ago edited 2d ago
You can pile up all the evidence in the world of bad moral character and decision-making for this guy. But even after a decade in which we've seen the results of enormously bad character and non-existent qualifications for office impacting the health of our country, we'll just ignore it when it suits us.
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u/Attackcamel8432 2d ago
You aren't wrong, not one bit unfortunately. No actual leadership on either side.
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u/Ruffles98 2d ago
The article was paywalled so I found another. Turns out Platner and his wife are still together. They got counseling and their marriage is now going strong. They have gotten past this. If his wife has accepted his past actions I don't see why Maine voters wouldn't accept it either.
In a statement from Gertner provided by the Platner campaign, she wrote that they have gone through counseling and that their marriage today "is stronger than ever before."
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u/pfnyc 2d ago
Didn't Anthony Weiner say pretty much exactly the same thing until he got caught again?
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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 2d ago
Well I don't expect her to say anything other than they fixed it and things are perfect again. The problem is we don't know if that's the actual truth.
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u/maggiej36 2d ago
Ugh - he is sleezy. The craziest part is this behavior is very recent. It’s only about 2 years ago. How much do adult men like this REALLY change? His wife acting like they are working on it is eye roll worthy. He is sexting a dozen women right after they got married? That’s the nail in the coffin for him.
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u/DreamLearnBuildBurn 2d ago
Dang, he's a Democrat, so scandal matters. As a Republican he could live with an underaged boy, but, alas, he's a Democrat. The only one talking about impeaching Supreme Court Justices, too.
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u/ShiftE_80 2d ago
Clearly scandal doesn’t matter that much to democrats either, considering that this isn’t his first or even 2nd scandal and yet he retains endorsements from major Dem politicians and polls very well with the base.
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
Dang, he's a Democrat, so scandal matters.
It's not the scandal but the repeated scandals.
Every thing that's continuing to come out reveals that he makes bad decisions and is willing to lie and hide them. The fact that these text were done only a couple of years ago also hurts his "I've matured" argument.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
The outrage appears to be mainly from the right. People don't care about scandals as much as before. The president has gotten away with several things that are far worse.
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u/Jealous-Draw8467 1d ago
People still care about scandalous behavior, at least those of us with ethical standards. Principles, morality and and ethics still matter to some of us, unfortunately, there are just not that many of us left in this country who still feel that they matter. I would never vote for someone like Platner or Paxton and tell anyone that would that would that they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and need to seriously reevaluate their personal ethics. The infedelity alone should be a giant warning sign that the person is not someone who can be trusted, but Nazi tattoos…or any tattoos for that matter…being charged with fraud and other…basically any….criminal behavior is just a step to far. We need a Senate full of Ossoff’s and Talarico’s and Mark Kelly’s, NOT Platmer’s Paxton’s and Cruz’s and their vile ilk.
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u/Hour-Ad-9508 2d ago
I’m a Democrat and pretty outraged that people are hand waving a Nazi SS tattoo.
You can think the president is bad while also recognizing something else is bad
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
Nobody is handwaving the tattoo, or else he wouldn't have had to cover it.
You don't realize that people can acknowledge that something is bad while also thinking of context.
A question I've asked multiple times that's never been answered is that he's so proud of being neo-Nazi that he'd knowingly wear a supposedly famous Nazi tattoo, why has no one found anything that's even remotely similar to Nazi rhetoric from him?
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u/Hour-Ad-9508 2d ago
I don’t think he’s a Nazi, I think he has incredibly poor judgment and a lack of maturity. Both qualities I don’t find suitable for being a U.S. senator (or, yes, president)
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
Being unaware of what an obscure symbol means and later correcting it doesn't establish that.
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u/Hour-Ad-9508 2d ago
“Nobody is hand waving the tattoo”
One comment later
“An obscure symbol”
LOL it was insignia of the Nazi SS! It’s on every “Nazi” uniform in media from the “are we the baddies?” sketch to Inglorious Basterds. He is a self described history buff and his campaign manager said he knew what it was
It was prominently on his body for almost 20 years. Again, someone who wants to be a senator that lacks the intellectual curiosity to figure out what they permanently put on their body is not a good candidate.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
You still haven't answered my question.
If he's so proud of being neo-Nazi that he'd knowingly wear a supposedly famous Nazi tattoo, why has no one found anything that's even remotely similar to Nazi rhetoric from him?
One comment later
“An obscure symbol”
LOL
You apparently don't understand what "handwaving" means, since me stating a fact isn't an example. He wouldn't have covered up the tattoo if him and others thought it was fine.
it was insignia of the Nazi SS
You failed to explain how that automatically mean it's well-known. It was obscure enough that there was never any controversy over it until last October, despite his military service and the ban on hate symbols.
It’s on every “Nazi” uniform in media from the “are we the baddies?” sketch to Inglorious Basterds
Most people haven't seen either.
self described history buff
That's extremely broad. I've watched and read a lot about history without ever learning how exactly the SS skull looked like.
his campaign manager
She didn't claim to have discovered that, let alone show evidence.
The implication is that she confidently assumes it to be true like you are, or else she should be clearer and say something like "I heard him admit it."
lacks the intellectual curiosity to figure out what they permanently put on their body
It's a skull, so it makes sense that they didn't think it had deeper meaning.
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u/Jealous-Draw8467 1d ago
I can’t see how anyone could vote for someone like Platner or Paxton. They are both reprehensible and their long history of unethical behavior should disqualify them from running for public office. But given who our president is, it is safe to assume that America has already lost its moral compass and sense of decency.
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u/Separate-Nobody9142 1d ago
Welp. The Democrats did want to win over voters who had gone over to Trump.
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u/Plastastic Social Democrat 2d ago
Crazy to think that the Platner campaign would normally be history after all these allegations but in this post-Trump world it barely seems to move the needle. Not sure how I feel about that.
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u/arup187 2d ago
A decade of Trump and both sides (though mostly Republicans) proving that they could care less about personal scandal or flaws in candidates as long as a candidate agrees with them might lead one to think this doesn’t matter in a blue state that went for Clinton, Biden and Harris with the later winning +7 but the Democrats are running a real risk. Collins has managed to survive this long as the sole New England Republican Senator left and Maine isn’t as blue as say Texas is red where Talarico is trying to pull off the improbable. We’ve seen as recently as 2022 where Trump’s endorsements of poor Senate candidates cost the GOP some pickup chances.
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u/keepinitrealzs 2d ago
That’s not totally true. The republican Alabama governor didn’t get elected 4 years ago? After his sexual improprieties surfaced.
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u/chloedeeeee77 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think on the spectrum of sexual improprieties “man in his 30s preying on teenage girls” is generally going to be more a lot more impactful than “married man texting other adult women”.
Interestingly, Roy Moore’s creepiness didn’t stop Republicans (including Trump) from endorsing him, the RNC from funding his campaign, and him getting 48% of the vote in the election.
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u/DrVader314159 2d ago edited 2d ago
I really can’t give a crap about what Republicans think constitutes ethics after they elected Trump twice.
You want to talk about consent? How about you start with the fact that the president you elected has been held civilly liable for rape, has been accused by at least 28 women of sexual misconduct, brags about walking in on naked contestants at beauty pageants, cheated on his wife with a porn star, has regularly associated with convicted child sex offenders, and has repeatedly opposed releasing files about said convicted child sex offenders?
I’ll consider holding senate candidates to stricter ethical standards after Republicans gain the ability to hold the goddamn president to any standards at all. Platner’s indiscretions don’t rise to the level of a footnote on the resume of Republican politicians.
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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 2d ago
Whataboutisms are incredibly weak defenses. Platner has shown many times he has terrible decision making skills and morals. Actually address that point instead of trying the same old "but what about Trump?!" line that Democrats have been running on for 10+ years.
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u/Ordinary_Team_4214 Humanist 2d ago
This isn’t a very compelling argument. Why would democrats hold themselves to a standard republicans refuse to? Seems pretty pointless.
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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 2d ago
Because we're supposed to be better than Republicans on morals and character. I expect my party to be better.
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u/Ordinary_Team_4214 Humanist 2d ago
Did you say the same thing about Joe Biden per chance?
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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 2d ago
I expected him to be better than Trump, and wish he retired instead of running again.
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
Why are you bringing up Trump? This is about the Maine Senate race, a state that Trump has not won in any of his three Presidential elections. He didn't even win it in the 2016 primaries.
What relevance does Donald Trump have to any of this?
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
What relevance does Donald Trump have to any of this?
Also if the Dems are trying to position themselves as anti-Trump, using trump to excuse a downward slip in their own morals and behavior feels a bit hypocritical.
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u/DrVader314159 2d ago edited 2d ago
Bringing up ethics when it comes to Democrats but not Republicans, given the vast difference in the orders of magnitude of ethical violations, is also hypocritical.
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u/pomme17 2d ago
It's not about excusing it. The point is that Democrats spent years trying to uphold a "when they go low, we go high" standard while Republicans repeatedly rallied around a politician who treated those standards as a joke. And Republicans arguably benefited from it electorally.
You can call Democrats hypocrites, sure. But so what? It just doesn't matter anymore. After watching the norm that presidents and public officials should meet some basic standard of conduct get shattered over and over again with few consequences, people just stopped caring. The social contract was broken too many times. Not only was Trump rarely punished politically for it, millions of voters actively rewarded him for it because they saw him as more authentic, more honest, and more "real". At a certain point people stop believing there's any reason to hold one side to standards the other side openly rejects.
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u/PreviousCurrentThing 2d ago
The point is that Democrats spent years trying to uphold a "when they go low, we go high" standard while Republicans repeatedly rallied around a politician who treated those standards as a joke.
Did they, though? I know Michele Obama said that in a speech once, yet Democrats have been been way more vitriolic in the Trump era than I ever remember them being before. I think Republicans are still generally more hostile and vitriolic than Dems, but I wouldn't call the last 10 years the "high road."
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u/Sierren 2d ago
I think this is something Dems often miss. Democrat politicians live in this weird space where they have been far more vitriolic than their civility minded members think they've been, while also not being as vitriolic as their militant members want them to be. They are genuinely caught in the lukewarm position of saying things far too outrageous to be put in the high ground camp, while also shying away from going as far as the militants would want.
You can't call Trump a fascist then not treat him like a fascist. Calling him a fascist means they aren't the party of civility, because valuing civility precludes you from doing that. Not following through means that, if they think he's a fascist like they say, they're weak and ineffectual in the face of him. Dems are caught in this middle zone between these two positions that leaves them with the worst of both worlds.
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u/PreviousCurrentThing 1d ago
That's a really good point, one I don't think I'd ever thought about quite like that.
If you're a militant Dem or to the left of them, mainstream Dem rhetoric is going to be insufficient relative to your perceived danger of Trump and look like the "high road", even if on an objective measure the rhetoric is way more heated than it was in previous decades.
Thanks for the insight. I think that does somewhat reframe how I view this particular "high road" discourse.
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u/dragonmp93 2d ago
Because Republicans are the one making a big fuzz about someone cheating on his wife.
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
Who cares what Republicans think? What matters is what Maine voters think.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 2d ago
The criticism is mainly coming from Republicans. A cheating scandal is a lot less interesting to people in this day and age.
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u/DrVader314159 2d ago
I don’t think one side needs to police themselves at their own expense when the other side won’t even pretend to, especially when one of their top offenders is the president.
All I care about at this point is how Platner will vote on issues that are important to me, should he be elected. Caring about personal ethics at the expense of electoral victory is thus a self-inflicted handicap and a luxury for Democrats that they should do away with till Republicans learn what “both sides” really means.
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u/soboshka 2d ago
If you only hold your candidates responsible if the other side holds their candidates responsible, then you never really cared about ethics. Vote however you please, but lets call a spade a spade. Not to mention Trump isn’t the OG of his behavior, he’s just a follower of Bill.
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u/dragonmp93 2d ago
That goes both ways, you know.
And at least Lewinsky was 22 when it happened.
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u/DrVader314159 2d ago edited 2d ago
Caring about ethics is a luxury that Id like to have, but at this point Id prefer anyone who’d vote to stop Trump’s nonsense, his dumb wars, his idiotic tariffs, the pointless inflation, the brazen corruption, and his overall degradation of America. You’re right, there are things I place above the personal ethics of the candidate in question.
In any case, Trump is orders of magnitude worse in terms of ethics compared to Bill or any other modern politician I can think of. I don’t remember Bill trying to overthrow an election, calling for riots when he failed, or engaging in anything resembling the open corruption we see every day. If Republicans want to suddenly start caring about ethics, they need to start at the top.
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
Another day, another controversy for the Platner campaign.
Graham Platner, Maine’s presumptive Democratic nominee for United States Senate, faces intense scrutiny after his wife, Amy Gertner, revealed to campaign aides last summer that he had exchanged sexual messages with multiple women. Gertner, who married Platner in late 2023, states they overcame these indiscretions through marriage counseling and remains a prominent campaign surrogate. This damaging leak originated from former political director Genevieve McDonald, who resigned alongside other staff over Platner’s deeply controversial history, including a questionable tattoo and inflammatory Reddit posts degrading women and minorities.
While Platner is the presumed nominee, the primary still has not happened yet and Mills is still on the ballot. Should the Dems try and coordinate his defeat? It feels like there's more than less out there for Platner. Especially if this story is potentially getting ahead of texts (and possible photos) leaking.
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u/FizzyLightEx 2d ago
I knew politics is a dirty business but leaking deeply personal marriage that the spouse confided in has to be an all time low.
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u/spald01 2d ago
That has to be career suicide for the campaign director. So there must be more to this story.
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u/4rtImitatesLife 2d ago
He already fired his last campaign director, not surprised if it happens again
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u/TheWyldMan 2d ago
Well it seems posts about him be a known cheater have been found in local "Are we dating the same guy" facebook groups have been discovered.
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u/wordsandwich 2d ago
I've actually met a few Millennials like Platner--came out of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, now do grown-up jobs very competently, but definitely lost something out there and would probably have stuff like this come out if they were ever vetted for a political campaign. This is going to be a very different era for Millennial politicians because they've lived their adult lives online and AI can dig up anything they've said in minutes now. But you know what, it's up to the voters to decide whether that's disqualifying.
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u/jimmib234 2d ago
OP, we get it. Just vote for Susan Collins and shut up. You want the same shitshow that's been going on for years to keep continuing. Thats ok. But this is a big nothingburger. Whatever happened was in his personal relationship with his wife, and they've worked it out.
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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 2d ago
But this is a big nothingburger.
Uh no it's not. It's another example of how the dude makes terrible decisions and has bad morals.
Whatever happened was in his personal relationship with his wife, and they've worked it out.
According to the campaign PR statement, you have zero actual evidence this is true.
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u/jason_sation 2d ago
Wouldn’t his wife have left the relationship if it wasn’t true?
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u/mbAYYYYYYY 2d ago
People stay in abusive relationships all the time. It’s quite sad.
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u/Content_Wolverine_40 1d ago
Quick question. Feelings on Jd or Marco having a SS tatoo that was pictured on their bodies for 20 years or so? Acceptable?
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u/THEbeardedMANTIS 23h ago
Cant wait to hear liberals keep doing mental gymnastics to defend this white man!
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u/Katwill666 2d ago
Majority of nominees across the country have been caught cheating including Republicans but yet they elect them anyway. It isn't 1999 anymore. Just look at Paxton in Texas or even Trump being a serial cheater didn't hurt him at all in the elections. Paxton will still probably be elected in Texas despite also cheating and committing fraud.
Way worse stuff have been done and still got elected. Jay Jones in Virginia sent texts about wanting to kill Republicans and he still got elected. The voters don't care anymore it's D vs R. Planter is polling +8 in a Dem +8 environment it'll likely come down to ranked choice voting.
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u/airforceCOT 2d ago
The problem is that Democrats simultaneously can’t stop complaining about Paxton’s cheating while making every excuse under the sun for Platner. This cuts both ways.
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u/nycbetches 2d ago
Most people aren’t complaining about Paxton’s cheating on his wife, but rather the fact that he accepted bribes while in office. Also, it should be said that Paxton carried on a years-long physical affair, publicly claimed he’d stopped it, but was lying and never really stopped. It’s not exactly the same thing as texting sexually explicit messages.
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u/blewpah 2d ago
I've hardly heard Dems talk about Paxton's affairs, it's mostly coming up now in response to Republicans complaining about this while supporting people who have had affairs. When Dems complain about Paxton it's usually about all the corruption.
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u/Pinball509 2d ago
Democrats simultaneously can’t stop complaining about Paxton’s cheating
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this. That he’s a corrupt criminal? Sure.
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u/KarlsReddit 2d ago
How old will Collins be in 6 years? Good Lord the Democrats can't get out of their own way