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If you actually dig into it, like me, he was clueless that a skull and crossbones was a Nazi symbol. It was the first thing I looked up on him, then just stared trying to sort it out because it didn’t look like any Nazi symbology I’d ever seen.
Good odds this a big money rumor to keep people like this guy off ballots.
He’s essentially working class. Liberal gun owner. Calling for retirement of the old guard. Better to look up what the man has said re Schumer and such.
I've said it before, but if his reddit post history is any indication, if he's a Nazi plant he's playing the really long game. Not that he hasn't posted stupid shit, but the worst of it was posted long ago and it's fair to account for personal growth.
I don't think he is the best progressive candidate possible but he probably isn't a Nazi. Just kind of ignorant.
My best friend was military. Raised Mormon, though he spent a decent amount of time in boys homes (very crazy mom) and went into the military as quickly as he could. Very typical meathead character, doing basic toxic male shit. He was working for the military when I met him. And I met him because he was leaving his faith when he learned about atheism. Since then, he became a pacifist (I helped him through his conscientious objector status to get out of the military), got rid of his guns, became a staunch Democrat, recognized his suppressed bisexuality, and started working on his mental health. If you put the person I first met, next to the person he is today, he's only visually the same. Completely different person. It's not normal to have such extreme changes. Most of us don't have those polar changes in life. But some people do. Platner sounds a lot like my friend. He has been angry for a while but finally put on the They Live glasses and figured out who and what to be angry at. Could it all be a farce? Yeah. We could be being misled. Any politician can be someone else. Platner's story thus far is absolutely plausible. And it's been scrutinized heavily. He's not a George Santos. He IS however targeted by Israel and the oligarchs. So, I'm choosing to believe his story, one that I've seen before, over targeted talking points that are being used in paid ads by AIPAC.
It's not about being misled. The guy has very clearly not done the work. Sure. He looks like he's starting to do the work, but he's a massive fucking liability with the half apologies and the backtracking. He's not woke yet. Yes, everyone has a right to start where there are. No, we don't have to fucking vote them into positions of power over us.
I'm sorry. But a liberal candidate that can appeal to white working class males is not going to have the social affectations of a gender studies major.
So what you're saying is that American voters are actually much more interested in electing a toxic male with a Nazi tattoo who saw the horrors of war and then elected to go work as a mercenary for Blackwater than they are in voting for actual liberatory politics. And I agree with you. That's why we have Donald Trump in office, and that's why voting Blue No Matter Who won't actually fix anything.
You're just more concerned with style than substance. You care more about whether a candidate wears the right leftist tokens than actually advancing progressive policies. This person is running on a genuinely progressive platform, and you're letting yourself get distracted with performative symbolism and irrelevant bullshit.
Not for nothing, but the Nazi Party adopted a progressive, worker-first, anti-capitalist, populist aesthetic to rise to power. It's not enough to put up a web page that says "this is my platform, isn't it great". That's aesthetics. He actually needs to DO something. And what he's done is self-isolate as an oyster farmer and get involved in local politics around the economics of oyster farming. That's it. He hasn't done anything progressive. He just says progressive things. We've seen that before.
Do you know what sheepdogging is? It's the use of an aesthetically anti-establishment candidate to attract the attention and energy of the disaffected, the alienated, and the oppositional for the explicit purpose of bringing that energy back into the fold of the mainstream power structure. That's exactly what's happening here. The Democrats don't care if Collins or Platner win. They are super happy with the controversy because it's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing - getting Democrats fighting about which Democrat to vote for instead of letting them become disaffected with the party and seek to actually challenge its power.
Platner's a sheepdog. He may not know it himself, but that's his role. It's obvious he has no interest in class analysis. He's a petite bourgeois liberal who wants to maintain the status quo that allows him to own and run a small luxury food farm. He's basically Biden 50 years ago, or maybe Fetterman or Sinema. He's never going to turn against the military. AOC campaigned on the same positions of not expanding the military and getting out of forever wars, and yet, she has voted to expand military spending at least twice. Not because she's evil or because she was fooling us this whole time, but because that's the reality of the US government and the Democrat party isn't interested, as a party, in changing it. And the evidence is right there. Not only do your favored candidates constantly have to compromise with the actual power structure, the history of progressive politicians shows that they slide right every term. There's no way to build a progressive bulwark voting in people one at a time over decades when you have things like Biden getting elected on his opposition to the Vietnam war only to then to architect the Crime Bill and unrelentingly support Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.
Platner MIGHT actually have a spine for a couple terms and vote the way he said he would - most of the time, anyway. But even if he does it won't matter in the short term because of the power structure of the US. But once he's in, all the evidence says he's just gonna keep sliding right, and voting in someone so obviously tainted by incredibly bad decision making is just a signal to EVERYONE in the Democrat party that we'll eat shit as long they tell us it's chocolate.
So anyone that isn't performatively woke is a sheepdog. He's been involved in activism and community organizing for years, but because of his race and economic background, you're stereotyping him. Any white male that isn't flamboyantly gay or metrosexual is a conservative. You're just going off vibes, stereotyping people because of their race, economic origins, and military service. There's absolutely zero evidence that he's going to take the path of Fetterman, but you're making racist and sexist stereotypes about him. Any white working class male is "toxic."
You're just a bigot. I never thought I would actually meet the hypothetical anti-white or anti-male bigot conservatives like to crow about, but I suppose like anything, search hard enough and you can find any kind of person.
And I'm not throwing around words like bigotry and stereotyping lightly. That is literally what you're doing. You're judging this man a traitor simply because the color of his skin, his sex, and because of the culture he was raised in. He talks like a white working class people, and you stereotype all white working class people as MAGA.
How about you cite some of his actual policy positions, instead of just engaging in hateful stereotyping?
I love how you literally cannot fathom the idea that it is a SUBSTANTIVE critique that the man joined the military, went out to kill brown people, re-enlisted, then joined a mercenary group to provide security details in that same theater, then came home and became a luxury food farmer and then while married sexted with a bunch of thirst trap TikTokers all while spending 20 years with a literal Tottenkopf tattooed on his chest that he proudly displayed for years.
As though what I am actually saying is "you can't trust him. He's white." It would be comical if it wasn't so sad that I share a country with you. Get it through your fake victim complex. This has nothing to do with him being white and everything to do with the fact that he has not done anything that would indicate he's not a fucking jarhead who's only concern about military spending is America First politics, where his anti-war stance is primarily economic (though he has specific ethical problems with specific wars).
Try not to make everything about your own insecurities.
What’s the alternative? There is only one alternative: Susan Collins. That’s the forced choice. Platner or Collins.
It will be one or the other.
Correct! It's almost like electoralism isn't solving any fucking problems and we should stop wasting time on this race - because every single choice is a losing choice - and instead focus our efforts on literally anything else that makes life better because giving Democrats our energy is just frog marching us towards more and more death, destruction, and devastation.
Versus, what? Enjoying the present Trump/Vought/Vance state?
The Trump state that the Democrats paved the way for and did not lift a finger to stop. Stop acting like administrationsnare discontinuous. Most of the tools Trump is using were put in place or enhanced by former Democrat administrations. Tom Homan was an Obama appointee. The Obama/Clinton war crime campaign in Libya was initiated by Bush 2. All of the prior administrations expanded the military, expanded militarization of the police, etc. Bill and Hillary lived in the Governor's Mansion in AK, saw the black house slaves from the prison who worked there and just went on being served by black house slaves for the entire term. Every administration and every swing of power in Congress has maintained and expanded the sanctions regime that kills 800k people every year.
The Democrats are not a solution. They have never been a solution. They have always been a part of the problem. The problem is not limited to a single party, it's the entire political system. It was founded this way, it was designed this way, it was cultivated this way, it was protected this way, it was maintained this way. And Platner shows us exactly how it works. Bring in a white supremacist murderer with a tottenkopf tattoo who, after seeing the atrocities of the US war machine first hand decided to go work for Blackwater mercenaries who are known to be even worse in the field and then all he has to do is remove the tattoo, apologize, and then get frustrated when people keep bringing it up. Blame the voters for not voting the right way. It's never the party's fault. They literally couldn't find someone who wasn't a murderer who volunteered to keep the murder going multiple times and doesn't really want to talk much about it except that everyone should respect him now for deciding to go into politics with empty promises that he has no power to keep.
What's the alternative? When you say a Sophie's Choice, just don't play that game and go do something like organize locally with the homeless, with the racialized, and build a movement that will topple this tower of bullshit. Work with your racial and gender category in breaking down their internalization of oppressive systems. Actually engage in liberatory politics instead of literally fighting for a murdering mercenary and blaming voters for not choosing to pick a leader from among a bunch of people who literally do not deserve their respect and do not deserve the power they are asking for.
TIL being white = "very clearly not done the work"...
LOL, telling on yourself on this one. The fact that he has not responded well to situation around his tattoo means he hasn't done the work.
Not responded well? As far as I'm aware, he explained that he didn't know what it was when he got it (which is very believable, as I didn't know what it was until I read about him), and he had it removed. What else do you expect?
"Haven't done the work" is such a vague term that gets overapplied to anyone you want to dismiss as backwards and ignorant, completely ignoring the work that they have done. If you can point to something ignorant someone said or did twelve years ago, then you'll say they "haven't done the work," for the rest of their lives. You apparently don't believe people can learn and grow, which is basically essentialism.
Obviously, if someone points out the work that they've done, you'll just dismiss it as performative and virtue signalling and say they don't get points just for meeting the bare minimum. So there's no way to actually "do the work" such that you would even acknowledge it.
That's pretty short-sighted, because if you give people no way forward then they're going to stop trying to please you, and they may even move backwards. Which makes it all the more impressive that he is moving forward, to be honest.
This is mostly just cope. Platner needs to actually talk about the tattoo, what he learned, how he learned it, how it applies to the context of US politics and the military, why people might be upset about it, what he's doing over and above what a normal person needs to do because the fact that he had a fucking tottenkopf permanently drawn on his body requires some more soul searching and actual consciousness than the kid who thought rap music was garbage when they were 15.
What's NOT doing the work is retreating to innocence. "I didn't know. How could I know? I removed it, what more could I possibly do? Actually people who are upset just don't understand."
That's not the work. That's literally text book crypto white supremacist defense mechanisms. It's the same playbook that allows Bostonians to believe they aren't racist when pretty much any POC who interacts with the city will tell you it's one of the top racist places in the country.
Everything is meaningless if your entire theory of action is vote blue no matter, so it's not surprising you think that saying Platner hasn't done the work is meaningless.
But don't worry. In a few more days you'll need to explain why he was sexting with women on TikTok and his wife found out and she chose to share it with the campaign. And of course, he didn't know it was wrong at the time. He was just caught up in the moment. He deleted the messages now so everything is fine. What more could I ask from him?
It really just seems like you are grasping at straws when it comes to Platner. He has explained at great length to anyone that asks him about that tattoo or his past comments. I've not once seen him shy away from the question or give some non answer like any other politician.
Plus, this issue is waaaaaay past its expiry date, Mills already tried this avenue and she got obliterated in the primary.
Continuing to push this really just makes you look like an establishment planted concern troll.
Not sure what you think I'm trying to cope with. "Just cope" is another meaningless thought-stopper that people like you employ whenever they're faced with disagreement.
He's already addressed it. You expect him to keep beating a dead horse, just because you'll never let it die? And dwell on the thing with really bad optics during an election cycle? Instead of, you know, talking about the economic turmoil and the fascists in power and calling out those things and presenting people with his ideas for what to do about it?
But no, you just want to lock him into a cycle of performative virtue signaling because he'll never be redeemed in your eyes. Only idiots bend themselves into knots to please the people that will never forgive them or accept them.
You don't know how much soul-searching he's done or "actual consciousness" he has. You're just assuming that he hasn't, and no matter what he does you'll always insist on that.
And your insinuation that people not liking rap music is racist is kinda laughable. Nobody is morally obligated to listen to music that doesn't suit their tastes. Cope harder.
"Vote blue no matter who" is usually used as an argument to justify voting for establishment/corporatist/centrist/milquetoast Dems. Platner isn't any of those things, he's literally a progressive. And if you want to focus on this overblown issue to sabotage his campaign because you can't accept the fact that people make mistakes out of ignorance but are capable of learning and growing, then all you're left with is Susan Collins so you're pulling a lot of weight for the actual fascists.
And I say saying he hasn't done the work is meaningless because he clearly has, and I've seen that phrase weaponized against people who have done the work so many times that I'm just desensitized to it now.
Are you just jealous that a white guy is in the spotlight? Nothing's stopping more POCs from running for office, so why aren't they? Stop trying to trip up the few progressive candidates we have over some manufactured race war that the oligarchs created in order to divide the working class in the first place.
And unless you have a source for your last paragraph, I'm just going to assume that's blatant disinformation. Shame on you.
LOL. Someone's not paying attention
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/us/politics/graham-platner-maine-senate-texts.html
Tell me you haven't done the work without telling me you haven't done the work.
Tell me more about how hard it is to be white when people are constantly telling you that white people you support (or maybe even you yourself) aren't doing enough.
I'm going based on his communications. I know people who are on the journey of recovering from white supremacist patriarchy and not only is Platner not showing evidence of having done the work, he's executing the classic "retreat to innocence" without a hint of self-awareness. I know former military who have done the work and I would vote for them. I know former neo-nazis who have done the work, but I wouldn't put them up for election because collective enforcement of norms and consequences for past behavior are critical social technologies.
No. I expect him to actually do something with his journey that isn't immediately attempting to put himself into a position of power. I expect him to go work with troubled teen boys, work with skin heads in prison, work with veterans recovering from toxic masculinity, work with violent men to show them a path towards healing. It's part of doing the work. You don't just go to therapy, read some books, do some journaling, remove a tattoo, and then run for senate without doing ANY of the reparative work. That's not how any of this works.
The article you linked says the conduct stopped and they worked through it in counseling before the campaign ever started. If his wife has already forgiven him and still supports him, then that's a strong indication that he has in fact worked through it.
The rest of your comment just sounds worn-out and petulant, so I'm not even going to bother anymore. Honestly all you're doing is desensitizing me further. I don't care if you call me a white supremacist or any of that shit because you've shown that phrases like that are meaningless coming from you.
For the record, I'm not a white supremacist. I just don't care if you label me as one, because you're probably going to anyway.
Hopefully you'll see how self-destructive it is to cry wolf just to get your way, but I doubt it.
Highly recommend you actually engage in some deeper anti-racism work in community with other white folk and accountability with some black folk.
I'm not going to be a punching bag for you just because I was born ostensibly the same race as the people who committed atrocities two hundred years ago.
By the way, those people were mostly Anglo-Saxons, who did not view my ancestors (Irish, Welsh, and German) as being of the same race. My ancestors fled famine and persecution, lived in poor mining towns, and on the German side I even have a great-great-grandfather who immigrated specifically to join the Union Army during the civil war. None of them owned slaves. All my grandparents were working class, as are my parents, and as am I.
I don't owe you shit, and using my race to say that I do, is the definition of prejudice.
Also, stop assuming what I have or haven't done with my life. I'm not going to hand you a resumé just to earn your approval, because that would be performative and you would still dismiss it as "not doing the work." Also, like I said, I feel no compulsion to try to win your approval.
I don't really have to. You provide all the evidence yourself
You don't have to give me a resume. Your words are all anyone needs to see.
I haven't provided you with any evidence, because this isn't a court room.
I've literally been arrested for my activism, you little turd. I don't go around announcing that because it's unnecessary and performative, like I said. And even if I do then people like you will still dismiss it and say I "haven't done the work." I've been through this song and dance before, and it's not worth my time to try to win your approval. Especially if you're only going to hold it out like a carrot on a string and then yoink it away every time I take a fall.
My entire life has been derailed, so I'll never be in a position where I can actually effect any change. This is the result of your petulant and petty campaign against every white person in the progressive space. Platner has a chance of winning office, so good on him for putting himself out there and subjecting himself to the scrutiny of being in the political spotlight.
But apparently you prefer Susan Collins, because that's what you're going to get if Platner doesn't win. If you want to impeach and convict trump, then we need to unseat as many maga loyalists in the senate as possible.
You're the exact same as those supposed "leftists" who trash Mamdani and call him a zionist, a fascist, or a corporate plant. You're making those words meaningless, which is carrying a lot of water for actual zionists, fascists, and corporatists. You're also disingenuous and incapable of arguing in good faith. No one is ever pure enough for you. You don't care about progress, you only want to inflame petty grievances. If you're not a right-wing agitator posing as a leftist, I'll eat my shoes.
Fuck off. How are those words for you?
You don't need to be a historian to guess that a skull and crossbones isn't exactly a peace symbol.
The US Marines aren't exactly the peace corps.
And?
Military.. His unit got that tattoo. Not my thing, but, whatever. The guy is an oyster farmer now. Cusses like a sailor too.
Idc. But then I also think the liberal side of things needs to lay off the gun thing.
I’d be curious to see an old source on that tattoo.
Not knowing what it is is an obvious lie, sorry. There's no way the white male millennial soldier that grew up with the History Channel didn't know what it was. His friends and having have said he knew what it was. He had Reddit posts defending police getting SS bolts and discussing the thematic differences between Totenkopf and Punisher tattoos.
And, honestly, if he genuinely didn't know what it was, that level of historical ignorance should also be disqualifying.
So if the argument is that he is, still, currently a Nazi, just running on progressive ideology to pull one over on all of us dumb rubes, why bother hiding it? Why be a cryptofascist when obvious-as-fuck fascists are running on fascist platforms and getting elected because they're fascists? He has said literally nothing even in his online posts as a private citizen anywhere near as far-reich or as blatant as the current admin says in plain sight on Twitter.
Idk and I'm gen x,different state, but seriously did i fuckin idiots really elect another fetterman? Quit bein gullible, and curb stop a Republican
You know they fucking did, man, and they are going to witch hunt US for calling their dumb asses out.
Then what was it? I’m no deep dive history buff on nazis but I’ve had the college level courses, in addition to the extra bits on Speer and the symbology. I did not recognize it. Link old, pre headline sources.
You've studied Nazism at a collegiate level but are asking for a source on what a totenkopf is...?
He also didn't know what sexting was, eh? Just said some words that his buddies thought sounded cool and next thing you know his wife is sharing them to expose what he's actually like?