The Democrat party embraces Graham Platner

American Thinker ^ | 05/04/2026 | Monte Donohew

[SeekAndFind]

In late April 2026, Maine Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, effectively handing the race to Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Marine veteran and purported oyster farmer.

Platner now stands as the presumptive Democrat nominee against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The development itself is unremarkable in the rough-and-tumble of primary politics.

What demands scrutiny is not the candidate’s past, but the cognitive mechanism by which that past has been processed, reframed, and ultimately laundered by his party. 

Platner acquired a prominent chest tattoo in 2007 while on leave in Croatia with fellow Marines. The image, a skull and crossbones, matches the Totenkopf, the death’s-head emblem of Hitler’s SS, the organization that orchestrated the Holocaust.

The Anti-Defamation League classifies it as a hate symbol.

Platner initially insisted he had no idea of its Nazi connotations, describing it as a generic military motif chosen in a drunken haze.

He covered the tattoo only after it became a campaign issue in October 2025.

Subsequent reporting, including CNN’s K-File investigation and accounts from acquaintances, revealed Reddit posts and private references suggesting long-standing awareness — he had reportedly called it “my Totenkopf.” Platner attributed the choice and his earlier rhetoric to post-deployment trauma and the “hyper-masculine, hyper-violent” culture of the infantry. 

Unearthed Reddit posts from 2013 to 2021 compound the picture: self-identification as a “communist,” endorsement of “all cops are bastards,” homophobic slurs, racially insensitive remarks on Black tipping habits, suggestions that women bear responsibility for sexual assault if they get “so f****ed-up,” and apparent tolerance for political violence.

---

TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: grahamplatner; maine; platner; senate

[SeekAndFind]

Platner has not denied authorship. He has apologized, framing the material as the product of anger, loneliness, and crude barracks humor from a “darker time.” Platner professes personal growth.

[Responsibility2nd]

If only his Nazi tattoo was the only strike against him.

This guy is a true Nazi Socialist in every meaning of the term.

[Responsibility2nd]

 

 

 

[FlingWingFlyer]

Which means if Hitler had survived WW Eleven (a little Illhand Omarket lingo there), he could probably get elected as a Maine Senator. Great.

[kawhill]

Sounds like a great guy if you’re a Nazi.

[BenLurkin]

That Death Head logo has been around for a long time. Well before Hitler and his band of lunatics.

[dfwgator]

“Have you looked at our caps recently?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K1Z-8EvS74

[dfwgator]

WWI Field Marshall August Von Mackensen

[OpusatFR]

I can just see the stickers as you leave the Maine voting precincts. 'I voted' above a swastika.

[fwdude]

I constantly try to wrap my head around what possible reason could lead ANYONE to hitch their wagon to the demonicRat Party, the Party of killing babies, mutilating “trans” children, destroying family, taxing people out of their livelihoods, grabbing all guns, coddling criminals, and opening our borders to the scourge of the criminal world.

[Antihero101607]

The Bellamy salute, swastika, and Iron Cross have also been around for some time before Hitler came around. Unfortunately you’ll never get the left to understand that, and in this case the left set the rules of engagement with the “Nazi tattoos” back in 2017 when smearing a DHS employee and former Marine withan iron cross tattoo. Too bad the right sucks at playing this game, and the left are so far gone they’re indifferent to it

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, he might have been elected as senator from Maine, but only after having been a US citizen for 9 years. Maybe the Truman administration would have blocked him from immigrating.

[Vermont Lt]

He was bad then. But he is better now.

Sounds like Prince Andrew.

[Vermont Lt]

Yes, skull and cross bones have been around since…well, since there were skulls and bones.

But his particular tattoo IS a totenkopf—death head—that matches those used by the SS.

I understand that stupid kids do stupid things. But if he knew it was a Nazi symbol, why wait almost twenty years to get it removed/covered?

This guy has lots of problems. His tattoo is probably the least of them…but the most visible sign of hypocrisy.

[Midwesterner53]

Was he a Marine or an Army Ranger. I have seen him wearing Ranger tabs. Regardless, he is an absolute disgrace to both.

[Ann Archy]

ALL DEMOCRATS ARE EVIL COMMUNISTS,

[sauropod]

.

[spankalib]

I think that’s the scariest real-life dude I’ve ever seen! He’s got a death’s-head stare, that’s fo sho!

[whitney69]

I guess some of Hitler’s birthing experiments (Lebensborn program) did survive. And with the expected results.

wy69.