Democrat Candidate For US Senate Receives Criticism For Nazi Tattoo

Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Maine, has received criticism from across the political spectrum for having a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol and making controversial comments online.

The Details: Platner, a Marine veteran, told the hosts of Pod Save America on Tuesday that he didn’t realize it was a Nazi symbol. He explained that him and some Marine friends were drinking overseas when he chose “a terrifying looking skull and crossbones off the wall,” claiming “nobody has ever said you’re a Nazi for it.” The tattoo, which Platner has since covered with a new tattoo, resembled the Totenkopf, which is German for “death’s head” and was a symbol used by Nazi forces during World War II. Although Platner denied any knowledge of the Nazi symbol, Jewish Insider’s Editor-In-Chief Josh Kraushaar reported that one of his former acquaintances went on record saying Platner called the tattoo “my Totenkopf.” Platner has also received criticism for online posts asking why black people don’t tip, calling himself a communist, calling all police basta***, and saying “that if they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”  

Democrats Need More Like Platner: Alex Shephard, writing opinion for The New Republic (Left bias) explained that the Democrat Party brand “is in the toilet, if not the sewer. Although when reports emerged about Platner’s tattoo and online posts, Democrat “leaders had to feel that, at long last, they’d gotten something right,” explaining that days earlier the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) chose to recognize Maine Governor Janet Mills over Platner. Shephard said that while “it turned out he [Platner] was a dud,” he seemed “like the kind of candidate Democrats need—an authentic person with a knack for communicating a populist message in the social media era.” While “Democratic Party leaders can boast that they got this one right,” Shephard said, “they got it right by doing the same thing they always do,” explaining that experience in politics is not always the answer. “The Democrats need excitement and youth” according to Shephard, and that “requires taking some risks, which means elevating more candidates like Platner.”

Unprincipled Partisans: Noah Rothman (Lean Right), writing for National Review Opinion (Right) said the Democrat party “is deeply attuned to the pernicious influence of ideological fascism,” explaining “it’s weird that a group of people who can identify latent Hitlerism in their breakfast cereal are theatrically perplexed by the controversy surrounding” Platner. Rothman went on to say, “for some reason, the cottage industry that has formed around identifying fascist semiotics in the wild has gone silent,” suggesting that they “are taking their cues from progressives, who seem convinced that Platner’s almost 20-year-old judgmental lapse is being spun wildly out of proportion.” Rothman said Bernie Sanders (Ind-VT) “barked indignantly when confronted with his far-left ally’s indiscretion.” Rothman explained the same Sanders that “can identify creeping Naziism in Donald Trump’s rhetorical slights toward immigrants,” and America itself, all of a sudden finds it inconvenient to do within the Democrat Party, which according to Rothman, is just “the sort of behavior we would expect from unprincipled partisans.”        

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