Goddamn It, Milkshake Graham Platner

Graham Platner, the Maine oyster farmer who might have been the best hope to replace Susan Collins in next year’s race for US Senate, is now trying to overcome a nightmare campaign scenario that he either A) should have anticipated and gotten ahead of years ago; or B) genuinely didn’t see coming. And frankly, option “B” seems awfully hard to believe, at least not without giving Platner a hell of a lot of benefit of the doubt.

In short, Platner until this week had on his chest a tattoo of the infamous SS Death’s Head (Totenkopf) skull and crossbones, which was part of the insignia of the Nazi troops who guarded Hitler’s death camps. Platner says that he and some fellow Marines chose the design when they were on leave in Croatia, and very drunk, in 2007, and explains that at the time, it just looked to them like a badass scary warrior tattoo. He says that until recently, he had no idea of the symbol’s Nazi associations, and that he’s never tried to hide it, and never had anyone tell him what it meant. As we say, that really stretches credulity, even if it’s what really happened. And we can’t be sure it is.

Here’s a video Platner posted to his campaign’s social media accounts, in which he explains how he got the tattoo and apologizes for what he says was an ignorant, horrifying mistake.

In an interview on Pod Save America Monday, Platner tells the same story, adding that he has made no secret of the tattoo, and that “At no point […] did anyone say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi.’ It never came up.”

But goddamn, as this screenshot from a family wedding reception video shared with the podcast makes clear, that’s not a tattoo that “closely resembled a Nazi symbol,” it’s just plain a Nazi symbol.

Platner is also struggling to explain a bunch of old Reddit posts from around 2013 in which he said racist homophobic stuff and downplayed the seriousness of sexual assault allegations by women in the military. He said in the Pod Save America interview that he is now “utterly horrified by” some of the things he said back then, and that it took him years of counseling to put such attitudes behind him. He told the Washington Post last week that he has come to see military sexual assault as a crucial issue, and that “I can honestly say I did not know what the fuck I was talking about,” back then (expletive restored), adding, “I have been for quite some time on the opposite side of this conversation.” And good for him that he acknowledges he’s rejected terrible ideas, though again, that’s the kind of thing you need to deal with publicly before opposition research dredges it up.

How plausible is it that Platner’s failure to say anything about the tattoo was a sin of omission and not commission, that he really had no idea what the symbol on his chest meant? We can’t know what’s in his mind, but we do know what was on his chest, and we know that anybody who was as Very Online as Platner says he was is also pretty likely to have come across this 2006 comedy sketch in which that very insignia prompts a fictional SS officer to wonder, “Are we the baddies?”

Why yes, among the top comments on the video right now is “If someone had shown this to the right drunk US Marine in Croatia.”

There are many things we like about Graham Platner’s policy positions. He’s unapologetically for socialized medicine, he rails against oligarchs and the control of politics by the rich, and he even supports postal banking. We like that he said “The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us out and not giving a damn.”

OK, but he had a Nazi tattoo, and it’s just really hard to believe he somehow managed to remain clueless about its meaning for nearly two decades. We guess it’s just barely possible that he actually was that clueless for so long, if only because it doesn’t appear to have occurred to him that it might be a problem. There are certainly no shortage of Americans who don’t know things that they should. But we aren’t obligated to elect them to the US Senate, even if they support postal banking.

Hell, not even if they replace the Celtic doggie design with Trixie Lulamoon, our favorite semi-reformed My Little Pony baddie.

Jewish Insider reported Tuesday that a “former acquaintance” of Platner said that in 2012, Platner referred to the tattoo by saying “Oh, this is my Totenkopf,” and that he’d “said it in a cutesy little way.” We don’t know how credible the former acquaintance is, and hearsay is inadmissible in court, but yikes if true.

As Noah Berlatsky put it yesterday, yes, people can change, and they needn’t necessarily be judged forever for their very worst moments if they’ve seriously grappled with their mistakes and atoned for them. However, he says,

There’s a big difference between “Graham Platner deserves space to be a better person” and “Graham Platner deserves to be the next Democratic candidate for Maine Senate.”

The crisis we face with Donald Trump means we need to back a candidate who can defeat Susan Collins, not someone who has positions we like but a giant albatross around his neck, even if he’s covered it with some Febreze and a plushie. More than a year out from the election, plenty of time to reach a consensus on who’s best suited to do that: Maybe Gov. Janet Mills, or maybe former Katie Porter chief of staff Jordan Wood; we’re agnostic at the moment.

Graham Platner is still young, and maybe he can convince people he really has changed, and deserves to hold elective office. But this isn’t the time to take that chance.

And now perk up it’s time for OPEN THREAD.

Maine Oyster Farmer Graham Platner Launches Senate Run. Susan Collins Should Be Concerned!

Guy Who Wants To Beat Susan Collins Is Concerned. No, In A Good Way!

[AP / Everything is Horrible / WaPo / Jewish Insider]

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